
Class l^F 45 3 4- 
Book "l^s4- 



10 



Gopyiightls^" 



1^9 6 



COPflUGHT DEPOSrr. 



. No. 169. f 



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MAYNARD'S /Y^y 

English • Classic • Series 



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FLlGHTofATAmRTWilt 



•"v^'Qax-^ 



Thomas De Quincey 






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NEW YORK 

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ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES, 

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Classes in English Literature, Reading, Grammar, et( 

EDITED BY EMINENT ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SCHOLARS. 

Each Volume contains a Skeich of Ihe Author's Life, Prefatory and 
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1 Byron's Prophecy of Dante. 1 31 

(Cant<is I. and II.) I 

2 Milton's L'Allegro, and II Pen- I 32 

seroso. ! 

3 Lord Bacon's Essays, Civil and S:i 

Moral. (Selected.) 34 

4 Byron's Prisoner of Chillon. 

5 Moore's Fire AVorshippers. 35 

(LallaKnokh. Seler-ted.) 

6 Goldsmith's Deserted Village. 36 

7 Scoct's Marniioii. tSelecliuns 

from (^anio V[.) 3 

8 Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel. 38 

(Introdnetioii and Canto l.i 39 

9 Burns'sCotter'sSaturdayNight, 

and other Poems 40 

10 Crabbe's The Village. 41 

11 Campbell's Pleasures of Hope 
I (Abridgnitnt of Part I.) 43 
j 13 Macaulay's Essay on Bunyan's 

Pilfrrini's Progress. 43 

13 Macau lay's Armada, and other 

Pt.eni.s. 44 

14 Shakespeare's Merchant of Ve- 

nice. (Selections from Acts I., 45 
III .and IV.) 

15 Goldsmith's Traveller. 46 

16 Hogg's Queen's Wake, and K 
1 men.v. 47 
il7 Coleridge's Ancient Mariner 
! 18 Addison's Sir Itoger de Cover- 48 

ley. 

19 Gray's Eiegy in a Country 49 
Churchyard. 50 

I 30 Scott's Lady of the Lake. (Canto 



J31 Shakespeare's As You Like It, 
i etc. (belecti^ns.) 

1 33 Shakespeare's King John, and 
i •, Richard II. (Setections.t 

1 33 Shakespeare's Henry IV., Hen- 
ry V., Henry VI. (SelecnoiiS.) 
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Julius Caesar. (Selections.) 
35 Wordsworth's Excursion. (Bk.I.) 
26 Pope's Essay on Criticism. 
37 Spenser'sFaerieQueene. (Cantos 
I. and II.) 

28 Cowper's Task. (Book I.) 

29 Milton's Comus. 

30 Tennyson's Enoch Arden, The 

Lotus Eaters, Ulysses, and 
Tithonus. 



Ining's Sketch Book. (Selec- 
tions ) 

Dickens's Christmas Carol 
(Condensed.) 

Carlyle's Hero as a Prophet. 

Macauhiy's AVarren Hastings. 
(Condensed.) 

Goldsmith's A'icar of Wake 
field. (Condensed.) 

Tennyson's The Two A'oices 
and A Dream of Fair Women 

Mem«)ry Quotations. 

Cavalier P«>ets. 

Dryden's Alexander's Feast 
and MacFlecknoe. 

Keats's The Eve of St. Agnes. 

Irving.'s Legend of Sleepy Hoi 
low. 

Lamb's Tales from Shake 
speare. 

Le liow's How to Teach Read 
iiig. 

AVebster's Bunker Hill Ora 
tions. 

The Academy OrthoSpist. A 
Manual of Pronunciation. 

Milton's Lycidas, and Hymi 
on the Nativity. 

Bryant's Thanatopsis, and other. 
Poems. 

Buskin's Modern Painters. 
(Seleetiins.) 

The Shakespeare Speaker. 

Thackeray's Kouudabout Pa- 
pers. 

AA ebster's Oration on Adam > 
and Jefl'erson. 

Brown's Kab and his Friends. | 

Morris's Life and Death of 
Jason. 

Burke's Speech OH American 
Taxation. 

Pope's Rape of the Liock. 

Tennyson's Elaine. 

Tennyson's lu Memoriam. 

Church's Story of the .^Eneid. 

Church's Story of the Iliad. 

Swift's Gulliver's Voyage t»» 
Liiliput. 

Macaulay's Essay on Lord Ba- 
con. (C;onden-ed.) 

The Alcestis of Euripides. Eng- 
lish Version by Rev. R. Potter.M. A. 



(Additional numbers on next page.) 



MAYNARD'S ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES.-No. 169 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAE TRIBE 



THOMAS DE QUINCEY 



WITH INTRODUCTION, CRITICAL OPINIONS, 
AND NOTES 




''241886 

Thomas 08Quino>)^fA||(jjs^lH6l^ 



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Reed & Kellogg's One-Book Course in English. 
Kellogg & Reed's Word Building. 

Kellogg & Reed's The English Language. 
Kellogg's Text-Book on Rhetoric. 
Kellogg's illustrations of Style. 

Kellogg's Text-Book on English Literature. 



In the preparation of this series the authors have had one object 
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Teachers are earnestly invited to examine these books. 

MayNARD, Merrill, & Co., Publishers, 

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Copyright, 1896, by Maynaru, Merrill, & Co. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



Thomas De Quincey, the "English Opium-Eater," was 
born in Manchester, August 15, 1785. The main facts of 
his life were recorded by himself in the most remarkable 
autobiography in the language. Every detail was colored 
and expanded into a poetic picture by his eccentric 
imagination, but the story has been found to be essentially 
3orrect. His father, a prosperous merchant engaged in 
foreign commerce, died in his thirty-ninth year, leaving a 
family of six children. The mother, a woman of unusual 
ability and culture, was enabled by means of an ample 
income to give to her children the best social and educa- 
tional advantages. From 1792 to 1796 the home of the De 
Quinceys was at Greenhay, a large country house on the 
outskirts of Manchester. Here they were furnished, he 
says, "with all the nobler benefits of wealth, with extra 
means of health, of intellectual culture, and of elegant 
enjoyment ; and if (after the model of the Emperor Marcus 
Aurelius) I should return thanks to Providence for all the 
separate blessings of my early situation, these four I would 
single out as worthy of special commemoration — that I 
lived in a rustic solitude; that this solitude was in Eng- 
land ; that my infant feelings were molded by the gentlest 
of sisters, and not by horrid, pugilistic brothers; finally, 
that I and they were dutiful and loving members of a pure, 
holy, and magnificent church." 

With the exception of the enforced adventures with 
one "pugilistic" brother, "whose genius for mischief 
amounted to inspiration," the shy, sensitive, diminutive 



4 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

Thomas was occupied constantly during his early years 
with books and day-dreams. "From my birth," he says, 
"I was made an intellectual creature, and intellectual in 
the highest sense my pursuits and pleasures have been 
even from my schoolboy days." He first received; 
instruction from a clergyman in Manchester; he spent two 
years at the Bath Grammar School, and a year at a private 
school in Wiltshire. Everywhere he was regarded as a 
prodigy in classical learning. Before he was fifteen lie 
could write and speak Greek with ease, and compose lyric 
poems in both Latin and Greek. One of his masters said 
to a visitor: " That boy could harangue an Athenian mob 
better than you or I could address an English one. " In his 
fifteenth year he was entered at the Manchester Grammar 
School for a term of three years, where it was expected he 
would obtain a university scholarship; but at the end of 
a year and a half, the monotonous and uninspiring life 
of the school having become intolerable to him, he ran 
away, slipping out of the head-master's house early one 
July morning, with an English poet in one pocket and 
Euripides in the other. His mother looked upon the act 
"much as she would have done upon the opening of the 
seventh seal in the Revelations"; but a lenient uncle 
arranged that he should have his liberty, with an allow- 
ance of a guinea a week. After a few months of vagrancy 
in North Wales, during which he "suffered grievously 
from want of books," with that strange perversion of com- 
mon sense which characteHzed his actions through life, he 
abandoned friends and support and hid himself in the 
wilderness of London. His mysterious adventures and 
sufferings at this time constitute that "impassioned 
parenthesis " of his life, the description of which reads like 
one of his marvelous opium dreams. After about a year of 
this penniless London life he was discovered by his friends 
and sent to Oxford, in the autumn of 1803. 

Of De Quincey's university career little is known further 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 5 

than that he won the reputation of being "a quiet and 
studious man, remarkable for his rare conversational 
powers, and for his extraordinary stock of information on 
every subject"; that he read prodigiously, especially in 
German literature and philosophy, and that he left without 
taking a degree. He may have neglected much of the 
venerable lore of Oxford— " ancient mother, heavy with 
ancestral honors, time-honored, and haply it may be, time- 
shattered," as he calls her; but it was here that he laid the 
foundation of his literary fame, mainly by mastering the 
great English classics. The nobility of his stately prose 
and the fullness of his poetic thought bear ample evidence 
of the early influence of Milton, Shakespeare, Sir Thomas 
Browne, and Jeremy Taylor. 

De Quincey had been strongly attracted toward Words- 
worth tlirough his poetry, and in 1809 he took possession of 
the little cottage at Grasmere which had been recently the 
poet's home. Here he lived about twenty years, in inti- 
mate relations with the famous "Lakists," Wordsworth, 
Southey, Coleridge, Lloyd, and Wilson. Here occurred 
the long struggle with the opium habit, from the horrors of 
which arose the splendid visions embodied in the poetic 
prose of his "Confessions." He had experimented with 
the pernicious drug at Oxford while suffering from neu- 
ralgia, and from the moment that he first experienced 
its wonderful effects he was the slave of opium, and was 
never afterward without a supply of the "ruby-colored 
laudanum." During the years 1804-18 the habit grew 
upon him until his daily allowance of laudanum was eight 
thousand drops, increased often to twelve thousand, enough 
to fill nine ordinary wine glasses. The result was a com- 
plete paralysis of the will; reading and dreaming consti- 
tuted his sole occupation during this period. 

He had married, in 1816, the daughter of a dalesman at 
the wayside cottage near by, known to tourists as "The 
Nab"; and aroused finally by domestic necessities, he 



6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

partially subdued his enemy and engaged in productive 
literary work. In 1821 his first paper appeared in the Lon- 
don Magazine, entitled "Confessions of an Opium-Eater, 
being an Extract from the Life of a Scholar." It was 
widely read, the author was immediately made famous, 
and for many years the public hailed with delight any 
article signed by the "English Opium-Eater." All his 
best work, comprising about one hundred and fifty articles, 
appeared in magazines, mainly in the Lo7idon Magazine, 
Blackwood^s, Tait's, and Hogg's Instructor. His connec- 
tion with Blackwood naturally led him to remove, in 1830, 
to Edinburgh, where he died December 8, 1859. From 
1840 his home was a secluded cottage at Lass wade, seven 
miles from town. 

The eccentric appearance and habits of De Quincy have 
always been a fertile theme for anecdote. His figure was 
small and fragile, with a fine intellectual head, and lofty 
brow, "rising disproportionately high over his small, 
wrinkly visage and gentle, deep-set eyes." He says of 
himself: "A more worthless bodj'- than his own, the 
author is free to confess, cannot be. It is his pride to 
believe that it is the very ideal of a base, crazy, despicable 
human system that hardly ever could have been meant to 
be seaworthy for two days under the ordinary storms and 
wear and tear of life." He was as great a walker as 
Wordsworth, delighting especially in nocturnal rambles. 
He could keep no account of money or time, being, in the 
conduct of his finances, as picturesquely^ incompetent as 
Goldsmith. It is said that he once stopped at Wilson's to 
escape a shower and remained nearly a year. He studi- 
ously avoided society, but when secured — usually by 
stratagem— for an evening at the tables of the great, his 
conversation was as brilliant as that of Macaulay. Those 
who heard him, speak with enthusiasm of " the magic of 
his talk, its sweet and subtle ripples of anecdote and sug- 
gestion, its witching splendor when he rose to his highest." 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 1 

" The talk might be of beeves, and he could grapple with 
them, if expected to do so ; but his musical cadences were 
not in keeping with such work, and in a few minutes (not 
without some strictly logical sequence) he would escape at 
will from beeves to butterflies, and thence to the soul's 
immortality; to Plato, and Kant, and Schelling, and 
Fichte ; to Milton's early years and Shakespeare's sonnets ; 
to Wordsworth and Coleridge; to Homer^and ^schylus ; 
to St. Thomas of Aquin, St. Basil, and St. Chrysostom." 

"An obvious characteristic of De Quincey's writings," 
says Professor Masson, " is their extreme multifariousness. 
They range over an extraordinary extent of ground, the 
subjects of which they principally treat being themselves 
of the most diverse kinds, while their illustrative refer- 
ences and allusions shoot through a perfect wilderness of 
miscellaneous scholarship." His essays upon metaphysical 
topics, theology, and political economy are chiefly interest- 
ing as examples of his speculative tendency and his 
remarkable power of analysis and illustration. His best 
biographical papers are the "Recollections of the Lake 
Poets," "Dr. Parr," " Richard Bentley," "Shakespeare," 
and the "Last Days of Immanuel Kant." Some of his 
finest work is contained in the papers on " Rhetoric " and 
"Style." His peculiar descriptive powers are illustrated in 
the "Revolt of the Tartars," "The Spanish Nun," and 
"Three Memorable Murders," and the ghastly humor of 
his essay "On Murder Considered as One of the Fine 
Arts " is without a parallel. The paper on " Joan of Arc " 
is "nobly perfect," says Professor Masson. But probably 
the finest achievement of his genius is the descriptive writ- 
ing, in " impassioned prose," as he himself styled it, of the 
" Confessions," " Suspiria de Profundis," " Levana and Our 
Ladies of Sorrow," "Vision of Sudden Death," and 
"Dream Fugue." "The 'Dream Fugue' is of no great 
compass," says Peter Bayne, "but we think that it would 
alone have been sufficient to secure a literary immortality." 



CRITICAL OPINIONS 



The crowning glory of bis writings is their style, so full 
of involved melody, so exact and careful, so rich in mag- 
nificent apostrophes, so markedly original, so polished and 
elaborate. He never forgot that the prose writer, if he 
wishes to attain excellence, must be as much of an artist as 
the poet, and fashion his periods and paragraphs with as 
much care as the poet elaborates his rhymes and cadences. 
Many passages might be quoted from De Quincey of which 
the melody is so striking as to irresistibly attract attention, 
and make us linger lovingly over them, apart altogether 
from the matter they contain.— McoZZ's ''Landmarks of 
English Literature.^'' 

Though De Quincey was convinced that prose w^as his 
forte, and wisely worked in it, he had not a little of that 
poetic genius which is found in all great prose writers and 
is intensified, as in his case so fully, by an intimate acquaint- 
ance with the best specimens of poetry. He had what lies 
below all high expression in prose or poetry — the instinct 
of literary form; what Matthew Arnold would call the 
sense of beauty. Intellectual as his style was, it was con- 
spicuously artistic, and in this he has done the unspeakable 
service of show^ing that the best work in prose literature is 
neither the purely didactic nor the purely imaginative, but 
is seen in the judicious combination of thooe elements in 
what may be termed the expression of thought in aesthetic 
form.— Himfs ''English Prose Writers.^^ 

8 ! 



CRITICAL OPINIONS 9 

One may fancy that if De Quincey's lang-uag-e were 
emptied of all meaning whatever, the mere sound of the 
words would move us, as the lovely word Mesopotamia 
moved Whitefield's hearers. The sentences are so deli- 
cately balanced, and so skillfully constructed, that his finer 
passages fix themselves in the memory without the aid of 
meter. Humbler writers are content if they can get 
through a single phrase without producing a jar. They 
aim at keeping up a steady jog-trot, which sliall not give 
actual pain to the jaws of the readers. Even our great 
writers generally settle down to a stately but monotonous 
gait, after the fashion of Johnson or Gibbon, or are content 
with adopting a style as transparent and inconspicuous as 
possible. Language, according to the common phrase, is 
the dress of thought; and that dress is best, according to 
modern canons of taste, which attracts least attention from 
its wearer. De Quincey scorns this sneering maxim of 
prudence, and boldly challenges our admiration by appear- 
ing in the richest coloring that can be got out of the 
dictionary. His language deserves a commendation some- 
times bestowed by ladies upon rich garments, that it is 
^.apable of standing up by itself. The form is so admirable 
that, for purposes of criticism, we must consider it as some- 
thing apart from the substance. The most exquisite pas- 
sages in De Quincey's writings are all more or less attempts 
to carry out the idea expressed in the title of the " Dream 
Fugue." They are intended to be musical compositions, in 
which words have to play the part of notes. They are 
impassioned, not in the sense of expressing any definite 
sentiment, but because, from the structure and combination 
of the sentences, they harmonize with certain phases of 
emotion. It is in the success w^ith which he produces such 
effects as these that De Quincey may fairly claim to be 
almost, if not quite, unrivaled in our language. Melan- 
choly and an awe-stricken sense of the vast and vague are 
the emotions which he communicates with the greatest 



10 CRITICAL OPINIONS 

power; though the melancholy is too dreamy to deserve 
the name of passion, and the terror of the infinite is not 
explicitly connected with any religious emotion. It is a 
proof of the fineness of his taste that he scarcely ever falls 
into bombast. We tremble at his audacity in accumulating 
gorgeous phrases; but we confess that he is justified by the 
result. I know of no other modern writer who has soared 
into the same regions with so uniform and easy a flight. — 
Leslie Stephen's " Hours in a Library.'' 

DE QUINCEY'S authorities 

A WORD or two on DeQuincey's authorities for his splen- 
did sketch called ' ' The Revolt of the Tartars " : One author- 
ity was a famous Chinese state paper, purporting to have 
been composed by the Chinese Emperor Kien Long himself 
(1735-96), of which a French translation, with the title 
"Monument de la Transmigration des Tourgouths des 
Bords de la Mer Caspienne dans TEmpire de la Chine," 
liad been published in 1776 by the French Jesuit mission- 
aries of Pekin, in the first volume of their great collection 
of " Memoires concernant les Chinois." The account there 
given of so remarkable an event of recent Asiatic history 
as the migration from Russia to China of a whole popula- 
tion of Tartars had so much interested Gibbon, that he 
refers to it in that chapter of his great work in which 
he describes the ancient Scythians. De Quincey had fas- 
tened on the same document as supplying him with an 
admirable theme for literary treatment. Explaining this 
some time ago, while editing his " Revolt of the Tartars " 
for a set of Selections from his Writings, I had toadd that 
there was much in the paper which he could not have 
derived from that original, and that, therefore, unless he 
invented a great deal, he must have had other authorities 
at hand. I failed at the time to discover what these other 
authorities were — De Quincey having had a habit of secre- 



CRITICAL OPINIONS 11 

tiveuess in such matters; but since then an incidental 
reference of his own, in his " Homer and the Homeridae " 
has given me the clew. The author from whom he 
chiefly drew such of his materials as were not supplied 
by the French edition of Kien Long's narrative, was, 
it appears from that reference, the German traveler 
Benjamin Bergmann, whose " Nomadische Streifereien 
unter den Kalmtiken in den Jahren 180:p und 1803 " 
came forth from a Riga press, in four parts or volumes, in 
1804-05. The book consists of a series of letters written by 
Bergmann from different places during his residence among 
the Tartars, with interjected essays or dissertations of an 
independent kind on subjects relating to the Tartars— one 
of these occupying 106 pages, and entitled " Versuch zur 
Greschichte der Kalmiikenflucht von der Wolga " ("Essay 
on the History of the Fliglit of the Kalmucks from the 
Volga "). A French translation of the Letters, with this 
particular essay included, appeared in 1825 under the title 
" Voyage de Benjamin Bergmann chez les Kalmuks : Tra- 
duit de TAUemand par M. Moris, Membre de la Societe 
Asiatique." Both works are now very scarce; but, having 
seen copies of both (the only copies, I think, in Edinburgh, 
and possibly the very copies which De Quincey used), I 
have no doubt left that it was Bergmann's Essay of 1804 
that supplied De Quincey with the facts, names, and hints 
he needed for filling up that outline-sketch of the history 
of the great Tartar transmigration of 1771 which was 
already accessible for him in the Narrative of the Chinese 
Emperor Kien Long, and in other Chinese state papers, as 
these had been published in translation in 1776 by the 
French Jesuit missionaries. At the same time, no doubt is 
left that he passed the composite material freely and boldly 
through his own imagination, on the principle that here 
was a theme of such unusual literary capabilities that it 
was a pity it should be left in the pages of ordinary his- 
toriographic summary or record, inasmuch as it would be 



12 CRITICAL OPINIONS 

most effectively treated, even for the purposes of real liis- 
tory, if thrown into the form of an epic or romance. Ac- 
cordingly, he takes liberties with his authorities, deviating- 
from them now and then, and even once or twice introduc- 
ing incidents not reconcilable with either of them, if not 
irreconcilable also with historical and geographical possi- 
bility. Hence, one may doubt sometimes whether what 
one is reading is to be regarded as history or as invention. 
On that point I can but repeat words I have already used: 
— "As it is, we are bound to be thankful. In quest of 
a literary theme, De Quincey was arrested somehow by 
that extraordinary transmigration of a Kalmuck horde 
across the face of Asia in 1771, which had also struck 
Gibbon; he inserted his hands into tlie vague chaos of 
Asiatic inconceivability enshrouding the transaction ; 
and he tore out the connected and tolerably conceivable 
story which we now read. There is no such vivid ver- 
sion of any such historical episode in all Gibbon, and 
possibly nothing truer essentially, after all, to the sub- 
stance of the facts as they actually happened." — From 
the Preface of Professor Masson's Edition. 

THE CHINESE ACCOUNTS OF THE MIGRATION 

As has been mentioned above, these appeared, in trans- 
lated form, in 1776, in Vol. I. of the great collection of 
" Memoires concernant les Chinois," published at Paris by 
the enterprise of the French Jesuit missionaries at Pekin. 
The most important of them, under the title "Monument 
de la Transmigration des Tourgouths des Bords de la Mer 
Caspienne dans TEmpire de la Chine," occupies twenty- 
seven pages of the volume, and purports to be a translation 
of a Chinese document drawn up by the Emperor Kien Long 
himself. This Emperor, described by the missionaries as 
"the best-lettered man in his Empire," had special reasons 
for so commemorating as one of the most interesting events 



CRITICAL OPINIONS 13 

of his reign the sudden self-transference in 1771 of so large 
a Tartar horde from the Russian allegiance to his own. 
Much of the previous part of his reign had been spent in 
that work of conquering and consolidating the Tartar 
appendages of his Empire which had been begun by his 
celebrated grandfather, the Emperor Kang-hi (1661-1731) ; 
and it so chanced that the particular Tartar horde which 
now, in 1771, had marched all the way from the shores of 
the Caspian to appeal to him for protection' and for annex- 
ation to the Chinese Empire were but the posterity of a 
horde who had formerly belonged to that Empire, but had 
detached themselves from it, in the reign of Kang-hi, by 
a contrary march westward to annex themselves to the 
Russian dominions. The event of 1771, therefore, was 
gratifying to Kien Long as completing his independent 
exertions among the Tartars on the fringes of China by 
the voluntary retirement within those fringes, and return 
to the Chinese allegiance of a whole Tartar population 
which had been astray and under unfit and alien rule for 
many generations. With this explanation the following 
sentences from Kien Long's memoir containing its histor- 
ical substance will be fully intelligible : 

"All those who at present compose the nation of the Tor- 
gouths, unaffriglited by the dangers of a long and painful 
march, and full of the single desire of procuring themselves 
for the future a better mode of life and a more happy lot, 
have abandoned the parts which they inhabited far beyond 
our frontiers, have traversed with a courage proof against 
all difficulties a space of more than ten thousand lys, and are 
come to range themselves in the number of my subjects. 
Their submission, in my view of it, is not a submission to 
which they have been inspired by fear, but is a voluntary 
and free submission, if ever there was one. . . The Tor- 
gouths are one of the branches of the Eleuths. Four 
different branches of people formed at one time the whole 
nation of the Tchong-kar. It w^ould be difficult to explain 



14 CRITICAL OPINIONS 

their common origin, respecting which indeed there is no 
YQry certain knowledge. These four branches separated 
from each other, so that each became a nation apart. 
That of the Eleuths, the chief of them all, gradually sub- 
dued the others, and continued till the time of Kang-hi to 
exercise this usurped pre-eminence over them. Tse-ouang- 
raptan then reigned over the Eleuths, and Ayouki over the 
Torgouths. These two chiefs, being on bad terms with 
each other, had their mutual contests; of which Ayouki, 
who was the weaker, feared that in the end he would be 
the unhappy victim. He formed the project of withdraw- 
ing himself forever from the domination of the Eleuths. 
He took seci'et measures for securing tlie flight which he 
meditated, and sought safety, with all his people, in the 
territories which are under the dominion of the Russians. 
These permitted them to establish themselves in the 
country of Etchil [the country between the Volga and the 
Jaik, a little to the north of the Caspian Sea]. . . Oubache, 
the present Khan of the Torgouths, is the youngest grand- 
son of Ayouki. The Russians never ceasing to require him 
to furnish soldiers for incorporation into their armies, and 
having at last carried oflP his own son to serve them as a 
hostage, and being besides of a religion different from his, 
and paying no respect to that of the Lamas, which the 
Torgouths profess, Oubache and his people at last deter- 
mined to shake off a yoke which was becoming daily more 
and more insupportable. After having secretly deliberated 
among themselves, they concluded that they must abandon 
a residence where they had so much to suffer, in order to 
come and live more at ease in those parts of the dominion 
of China where the religion professed is that of Fo. At 
the commencement of the eleventh month of last year 
[December, 1770] they took the road, with their wives, their 
children, and all their baggage, traversed the country of 
the Hasaks [Cossacks], skirted Lake Palkache-nor and the 
adjacent deserts ; and, about the end of the sixth month of 



CRITICAL OPimONS 15 

this year [in August, 1771], after having passed over more 
than ten thousand lys during the space of the eight whole 
months of their journey, they arrived at last on the frontiers 
of Charapen, not far from the borders of Ily. I knew already 
that the Torgouths were on the march to come and make 
submission to me. The news was brought me not long 
after their departure from Etchil. I then reflected that, as 
Ileton, general of the troops that are at Ily, was already 
charged with other very important affairs, 'it was to be 
feared that he would not be able to regulate with all the 
requisite attention those which concerned these new refu- 
gees. Chouhede, one of the councilors of the general, 
was at Ouche, charged with keeping order among the 
Mahometans there. As he found it within his power to 
give his attention to the Torgouths, I ordered him to repair 
to Ily and do his best for their solid settlement. . . At the 
same time I did not neglect any of the precautions that 
seemed to me necessary. I ordered Chouhede to raise 
small forts and redoubts at the most important points, and 
to cause all the passes to be carefully guarded ; and I en- 
joined on him the duty of himself getting ready the neces- 
sary provisions of every kind inside these defenses. . . 
The Torgouths arrived, and on arriving found lodgings 
ready, means of sustenance, and all the conveniences they 
could have found iii their own proper dwellings. This is 
not all. Those 'principal men among them who had to 
come personally to do me homage had their expenses paid, 
and were honorably conducted, by the imperial post-road, 
to the place where I then was. I saw them; I spoke to 
them; I invited them to partake with me in the pleasures 
of the chase; and, at the end of the number of days 
appointed for this exercise, they attended me in my retinue 
as far as to Ge-hol. There I gave them a ceremonial 
banquet and made them the customary presents. . . It 
was at this Ge-hol, in those charming parts where Kang-hi, 
my grandfather, made himself an abode to which he could 



16 CRITICAL OPINIONS 

retire during the hot season, at the same time that he thus 
put himself in a situation to be able to watch with greater 
care over the welfare of the peoples that are bej'ond the 
western frontiers of the Empire; it was, I say, in those 
lovely parts that, after having conquered the whole country 
of the Eleuths, I had received the sincere homages of 
Tchering and his Tourbeths, who alone among the Eleuths 
had remained faithful to me. One has not to go many 
years back to touch the epoch of that transaction. The 
remembrance of it is yet recent. And now — who could 
have predicted it ? — when there was the least possible room 
for expecting such a thing, and when I had no thought of 
it, that one of the branches of the Eleuths which first sep- 
arated itself from the trunk, those Torgouths who had 
voluntarilj^ expatriated themselves to go and live under a 
foreign and distant dominion, these same Torgouths are 
come of themselves to submit to me of their own good will ; 
and it happens that it is still at Ge-hol, not far from the 
venerable spot where my grandfather's ashes repose, that T 
have the opportunity, which I never sought, of admitting 
them solemnly into the number of my subjects." 

Annexed to this general memoir there were some notes, 
also by the Emperor, one of them being that description of 
the sufferings of the Torgouths on their march, and of the 
miserable condition in which they arrived at the Chinese 
frontier, which De Quincey has quoted. 'Annexed to the 
memoir there is also a letter from P. Amiot, one of the 
French Jesuit missionaries, dated " Pe king, 15th October, 
1773," containing a comment on the memoir of a certain 
Chinese scholar and mandarin, Yu-min-tchoung, who had 
been charged by the Emperor with the task of seeing the 
narrative properly preserved in four languages in a monu- 
mental form. It is from this Chinese comment on the 
Imperial Memoir that there is the extract at p. 67 as to the 
miserable condition of the fugitives. 

On a comparison of De Quincey 's splendid paper with 



CRITICAL OPINIONS 17 

the Chinese documents, several discrepancies present them- 
selves; the most important of which perhaps are tliese: 
(1) In De Quincey's paper it is Kien Long himself who first 
descries the approach of the vast Kalmuck horde to the 
frontiers of his dominions. On a fine morning in the early 
autumn of 1771, we are told, being then on a hunting expe- 
dition in the solitary Tartar wilds on the outside of the 
great Chinese Wall, and standing by chance at an opening 
of his pavilion to enjoy the morning sunshine, he sees the 
huge sheet of mist on the horizon, which, as it rolls nearer 
and nearer, and its features become more definite, reveals 
camels, and horses, and human beings in myriads, and 
announces the advent of, etc. etc. ! In Kien Long's own 
narrative he is not there at all, having expected indeed the 
arrival of the Kalmuck host, but having deputed the 
military and commissariat arrangements for the reception 
of them to his trusted officer Cliouhede; and his first sight 
of any of them is when their chiefs are brought to him, by 
the imperial post-road, to his quarters a good way off, 
where they are honorably entertained, and whence they 
accompany him to his summer residence of Ge-hol. (2) De 
Quincey's closing account of the monument in memory of 
the Tartar transmigration which Kien Long caused to be 
erected, and his copy of the fine inscription on the monu- 
ment, are not in accord with the Chinese statements respect- 
ing that matter. "Mighty columns of granite and brass 
erected by the Emperor Kien Long near the banks of the 
Ily"is De Quincey's description of the monument. The 
account given of the affair by the mandarin Yu-min- 
tchoung, in his comment on the Emperor's Memoir, is very 
different. "The year of the arrival of the Torgouths," 
he says, " chanced to be precisely that in which the 
Emperor was celebrating the eightieth year of the age of 
his mother the Empress-Dowager. In memory of this 
happy day his Majesty had built on the mountain which 
shelters from the heat (Pi-chou-chan) a vast and magnifi- 



18 CRITICAL OPINIONS 

cent miao, in honor of the reunion of all the followers of 
Fo in one and the same worship ; it had just been completed 
when Oubache and the other princes of his nation arrived 
at Ge-hol. In memory of an event which has contributed 
to make this same year forever famous in our annals, it 
has been his Majesty's will to erect in the same miao a 
monument which should fix the epoch of the event and 
attest its authenticity; he himself composed the words for 
the monument and wrote the characters with his own hand. 
How small the number of persons that will have an oppor- 
tunity of seeing and reading this monument within the 
walls of the temple in which it is erected! " Moreover the 
words of the monumental inscription in De Quincey's copy 
of it are hardly what Kien Long would have written or could 
have authorized. ."Wandering sheep w^ho had strayed 
away from the Celestial Empire in the year 1616 " is the 
expression in De Quincey's copy for that original secession 
of the Torgouth Tartars from their eastern home on the 
Chinese borders for transference of themselves far west to 
Russia, which was repaired and compensated by their return 
in 1771 under their Khan Oubache. As distinctly, on the 
other hand, the memoir of Kien Long refers the date of the 
original secession to no farther back than the reign of his 
own grandfather, the Emperor Kang-hi, when Ayouki, the 
grandfather of Oubache, was Khan of the Torgouths, and 
induced them to part company with their overbearing kins- 
men the Eleuths, and seek refuge within the Russian terri- 
tories on the Volga. In the comment of the Chinese 
mandarin on the Imperial memoir the time is more exactly 
indicated by the statement that the Torgouths had remained 
"more tlian seventy j^ears'Mn their Russian settlements 
when Oubache brought them back. This would refer us to 
about 1700, or, at farthest, to between 16J)0 and 1700, for 
the secession under Aj^ouki. 

The discrepancies are partly explained by the fact that 
De Quincey followed Bergmann's account — w^hich account 



CRITICAL OPINIONS 19 

differs avowedly in some particulars from that of the 
Chinese Memoirs. In Bergmann I find the original seces- 
sion of the ancestors of Oubache's Kalmuck horde from 
China to Russia is pushed back to 1616, just as in De 
Quincey. But, though De Quincey keeps by Bergniann 
when he pleases, he takes liberties with Bergmann too. 
intensifies Bergmann's story throughout, and adds much to 
it for which there is little or no suggestion in Bergmann. 
For example, the incident which De Quincey introduces 
with such terrific effect as the closing catastrophe of the 
march of the fugitive Kalmucks before their arrival on the 
Chinese frontier — the incident of their thirst-maddened 
rush into the waters of Lake Tengis, and their wallow there 
in bloody struggle with their Bashkir pursuers — has no 
basis in Bergmann larger than a few slight and rather 
matter-of-fact sentences. As Bergmann liimself refers here 
and there in his narrative to previous books, German or 
Russian, for his authorities, it is just possible that De 
Quincey may have called some of these to his aid for any 
intensification or expansion of Bergmann he thought 
necessary. My impression, how^ever, is that he did nothing 
of the sort, but deputed any necessary increment of his 
Bergmann materials to his own lively imagination. 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE ^ 



There is no great event in modern history, or, perliaps 
it may be said more broadly, none in all hisk)ry, from its 
earliest records, less generally known, or more striking to 
the imagination, than the flight eastwards of a principal 
Tartar nation across the boundless steppes of Asia in the 5 
latter half of the last century. The terminus a quo of this 
flight and the terminus ad quern are equally magnificent — 
the mightiest of Christian thrones being the one, the 
mightiest of pagan the other; and the grandeur of these 
two terminal objects is harmoniously supported by the 10 
romantic circumstances of the flight. In the abruptness 
of its commencement and the fierce velocity of its execu- 
tion we read an expression of the wild, barbaric character 
of the agents. In the unity of purpose connecting this 
myriad of wills, and in the blind but unerring aim at a 15 
mark so remote, there is something w^hicli recalls to the 
mind those almighty instincts that propel the migrations 
of the swallow or the life- withering marches of the locust. 
Then, again, in the gloomy vengeance of Russia and her 
vast artillery, which hung upon the rear and the skirts of 20 

* Flight of a Tartar Tribe. This essay originally appeared in Black- 
wood's Magazine for July, 1827. For De Qnincey's authorities see p. 65. 

5 Steppes. The steppes of Asia are analogous to our western prairies. 
Note throughout the essay De Quincey's love of describing the vast and 
tremendous. 

8 Terminus a quo. The point of departure, 
' Terminus ad quern. The terminating point. 
8 Mightiest of Christian thrones. Russia. 
" Mightiest of Pagan. China. 

81 . 



/ 



22 FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE _ 

the fugitive vassals, we are reminded of Miltonic images—^ 
such, for instance, as that of the solitary hand pursuing 
through desert spaces and through ancient chaos a rebel- 
lious host, and overtaking with volleying thunders those 

5 who believed themselves already within the security of 
darkness and of distance. 

We shall have occasion, farther on, to compare this 
event with other great national catastrophes as to the mag- 
nitude of the sutfering; but it may also challenge a coni- 

loparison with similar events under another relation — viz., 
as to its dramatic capabilities. Few cases, perhaps, in 
romance or history, can sustain a close collation with this 
as to the complexity of its separate interests. The great 
outline of the enterprise, taken in connection with the 

15 operative motives, hidden or avowed, and the religious 
sanctions under which it was pursued, give to the case a 
triple character; 1st. That of a conspirac3% with as close a 
unit}" in the incidents, and as much of a personal interest 
in the moving characters, with fine dramatic contrasts, as 

20 belongs to" Venice Preserved^or to the"Fiesco"of Schiller. 
2dly. That of a great military expedition offering the same 
romantic features of vast distances to be traversed, vast, 
reverses to be sustained, untried routes, enemies obscurely 
ascertained, and hardships too vaguely prefigured, which 

25 mark the Egyptian expedition of Cambyses; the anabasis 

1 Miltonic images. Images such as those used by John Milton, especially 
in " Paradise Lost." 

20 "Venice Preserved." A famous tragedy, by Thomas Otway (1651-85). 

20 " Fiesco." A drama by Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805), one of the greatest 
of German poets. 

25 Cambyses. A powerful king of the Medes and Persians. He reigned 
from 529-523 b. c, and is distinguished by his conquest of Egypt in 525 b. c. 

35 Anabasis. In Greek, a going up. At the beginning of the reign of the 
Persian monarch Artaxerxes II. occurred the revolt of his younger brother 
Cyrus, satrap in Western Asia, who marched against Babylon and fell in the 
battle of Cunaxa, 401 b. c. He was supported by a body of ten thousand Greek 
mercenaries, whose retiring march to the Black Sea over the mountains of 
Kurdistan has been immortalized in Xenophon's " Anabasis." 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 23 

of the younger Cyrus, and the subsequent retreat of the Ten 
Thousand to the Black Sea ; the Parthian expeditions of the 
Romans, especially those of Crassus and Julian ; or as more 
disastrous than any of them, and in point of space, as well 
as in amount of forces, more extensive, the Russian anaba- 5 
sis and katabasis of Napoleon. 3dly. That of a religious 
exodus, authorized by an oracle venerated throughout 
many nations of Asia — an exodus, therefore, in so far 
resembling the great Scriptural exodus of the Israelites 
under Moses and Joshua, as well as in the very peculiar 10 
distinction of carrying along with them their entire fam- 
ilies, women, children, slaves, their herds of cattle and of 
sheep, their horses and their camels. 

This triple character of the enterprise naturally invests it ■ 
with a more comprehensive interest; but the dramatic 15 
interest which we ascribed to it, or its fitness for a stage 
representation, depends partly upon the marked variety and 
the strength of the personal agencies concerned, and partly 
upon the succession of scenical situations. Even the steppes, 
the camels, the tents, the snowy and the sandy deserts are not 20 
beyond the scale of our modern representative powers, 
as often called into action in the theaters both of Paris and 

2 Parthian expeditions. The dominions of ancient Parthia extended 
from the Euphrates to the Indus, and from the Oxus to the Indian Ocean. 
The Parthian warriors enjoyed the rare distinction of having continually 
baffled the efforts of Rome for the subjection of their country, and in 53 b. c. 
inflicted on the Roman army under Crassus one of the most crushing defeats 
that ever befell the arms of Rome. The head of Crassus was cut off and sent 
to the Parthian king, who poured melted gold into the mouth in mockery of 
its owner's love for the precious metal. The Parthian expedition of the 
emperor Julian in 363 a. d., the Persian expedition in reality, as the kingdom 
of Parthia had been put an end to by the Persians in 226 b. c, was not as 
disastrous as that of Crassus, although Julian himself was killed. 

* Katabasis. A going down. Napoleon invaded Russia in the spring of 
1812 with over half a million men. The Russians encountered him with great 
skill and determination, and after he had invested Moscow, set fire to the 
city, so that from lack of supplies he was obliged to retreat. This retreat 
through an enemy's country in winter almost entirely destroyed the French 
army, and was one of the greatest disasters recorded in history. 



24 FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 

London; and the series of situations unfolded, beginning 
with the general conflagration on the Wolga; passins- 
thence to the disastrous scenes of the flight (as it literally 
was in its commencement); to the Tartar siege of the Rus- 

5 sian fortress Koulagina ; the bloody engagement with the 
Cossacks in the mountain passes at Ouchim ; the surprisal 
by the Bashkirs and the advanced posts of the Russian 
army at Torgau ; the j)rivate conspiracy at this point against 
the khan; the long succession of running fights; the part- 

10 ing massacres at the Lake of Tengis under the eyes of the 
Chinese, and, finally, the tragical retribution to Zebek- 
Dorclii at the hunting lodge of the Chinese emperor — all 
these situations communicate a scenical animation to the 
wild romance, if treated dramatically; while a higher and a 

15 philosophic interest belongs to it as a case of authentic 
history, commemorating a great revolution, for good and 
for evil, in the fortunes of a whole people— a people semi- 
barbarous, but simple-hearted, and of ancient descent. 

2o On the 21st of January, 1761, the young Prince OubachaJ 
assumed the scepter of the Kalmucks upon the death of his' 
father. Some part of the power attached to this dignity he 
had already wielded since his fourteenth year, in quality of 
vice khan, by the express appointment, and with the 

25 avowed support, of the Russian government. He was now 
about eighteen years of age, amiable in his personal char- 
acter, and not without titles to respect in his public charac- 
ter as a sovereign prince. In times more peaceable, and 
amongst a people more entirely civilized or more humanized 

30 by religion, it is even probable that he might have dis- 
charged his high duties with considerable distinction; but 
his lot was thrown upon stormy times, and a most difiicult 
crisis amongst tribes whose native ferocity was exasperated 
by debasing forms of superstition, and by a nationality as 

21 Kalmucks. A branch of the Mongolian family inhabiting parts of the 
Russian and Chinese empires. 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 25 

well as an inflated conceit of their own merit absolutely 
unparalleled ; whilst the circumstances of their hard and 
trying position under the jealous surveillance of an irre- 
sistible lord paramount, in the person of the Russian Czar, 
gave a fiercer edge to the natural unamiableness of the 5 
Kalmuck disposition, and irritated its gloomier qualities 
into action under the restless impulses of suspicion and 
permanent distrust. No prince could hope for a cordial 
allegiance from his subjects or a peaceful reign under the 
circumstances of the case; for the dilemma in wliich a 10 
Kalmuck ruler stood at present was of this nature: tvant- 
ing the support and sanction of the Czar, he was inevitably 
too weak from without to command confidence from his 
subjects or resistance to his competitors. On the other 
hand, with this kind of support, and deriving his title in 13 
any degree from the favor of the imperial court, he became 
almost in that extent an object of hatred at home and within 
the whole compass of his own territory. He was at once 
an object of hatred for the past, being a living monument of 
national independence ignominiously surrendered ; and an 20 
object of jealousy for the future, as one who had already 
advertised himself to be a fitting tool for the ultimate pur- 
poses (whatsoever those might prove to be) of the Russian 
court. Coming himself to the Kalmuck scepter under the 
heaviest weight of prejudice from the unfortunate circum- 25 
stances of his position, it might have been expected that 
Oubacha would have been pre-eminently an object of detes- 
tation ; for, besides his known dependence upon the Cabinet 
of St. Petersburg, the direct line of succession had been set 
aside, and the principle of inheritance violently suspended, in 30 
favor of his own father, so recently as nineteen years before 
the era of his own accession ; consequently within the lively 
remembrance of the existing generation. He, therefore, 
almost equally with his father, stood within the full cur- 
rent of the national prejudices, and might have antici- 35 
pated the most pointed hostility. But it was not so : such 



2G FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 

are the caprices in human affairs that he was even, in a 
moderate sense, popular — a benefit which wore the more 
cheering aspect and the promises of permanence, inasmuch 
as he owed it exclusively to his personal qualities of kind- 

5 ness and affability, as well as to the beneficence of his 
government. On the other hand, to balance this unlooked- 
for prosperity at the outset of his reign, he met with a 
rival in popular favor — almost a competitor— in the person 
of Zebek-Dorchi, a prince with considerable pretensions to 

lo the throne, and, perhaps it might be said, with equal pre- 
tensions. Zebek-Dorchi was a direct descendant of the 
same royal house as himself, through a different branch. 
On public grounds, his claim stood, perhaps, on a footing 
equally good with that of Oubacha; while his personal 

15 qualities, even in those aspects which seemed to a philo- 
sophical observer most odious and repulsive, promised the 
most effectual aid to the dark purposes of an intriguer or a 
conspirator, and were generally fitted to win a popular 
support precisely in those points where Oubacha was most 

20 defective. He was much superior in external appearance 
to his rival on the throne, and so far better qualified to win 
the good opinion of a semi-barbarous people; whilst his 
dark intellectual qualities of Machiavelian dissimulation, 
profound hypocrisy, and perfidy w^hich knew no touch of 

25 remorse, were admirably calculated to sustain any ground 
which he might win from the simple-hearted people with 
whom he had to deal and from the frank carelessness of his 
unconscious competitor. 

At the very outset of his treacherous career, Zebek- 

SoDorchi was sagacious enough to perceive that nothing 
could be gained by open declaration of hostility to the 
reigning prince. The choice had been a deliberate act 



•■'3 Machiavelian. Machiavelli's name has become proverbial for du- 
plicity. He was a famous secretary to the Florentine Republic and au 
arch dissembler (1469-1527). 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 27 

on the part of Russia; and Elizabeth Petrowna was not 
the person to recall her own favors with levity or upon 
slight grounds. Openly, therefore, to have declared his 
enmity toward his relative on the throne, could have had 
no effect but that of arming suspicions against his own 5 
ulterior purposes in a quarter where it was most essential 
to his interest that, for the present, all suspicions should 
be hoodwinked. Accordingly, after much meditation, the 
course he took for opening his snares was tlris: He raised 
a rumor that his own life was in danger from the plots of 10 
several saissang (that is, Kalmuck nobles), who were leagued 
together under an oath to assassinate him ; and immedi- 
ately after, assuming a well-counterfeited alarm, he fled to 
Tcherkask, followed by sixty-five tents. From this place 
he kept up a correspondence with the imperial court, and, 15 
by way of soliciting his cause more effectually, he soon 
repaired in person to St. Petersburg. Once admitted to 
personal conferences with the Cabinet, he found no diffi- 
culty in winning over the Russian councils to a concur- 
rence with some of his political views, and thus covertly 20 
introducing the point of that wedge which was finally to 
accomplish his purposes. In particular, he persuaded the 
Russian Government to make a very important alteration 
in the constitution of the Kalmuck state council, which in 
effect reorganized the whole political condition of the state 25 
and disturbed the balance of power as previously adjusted. 
Of this council— in the Kalmuck language called sarga— 
there were eight members, called sargatchi ; and hitherto 
it had been the custom that these eight members should be 
entirely subordinate to the khan ; holding, in fact, the 30 
ministerial character of secretaries and assistants, but in 

1 Elizabeth Petrowna, daughter of Peter the Great, was Empress of 
Russia from 1741 to 1762. 

1* Tcherkask. Circassia. 

>* Tents. Those living in sixty-five tents, an example of what rhetoricians 
call synecdoche. 



28 FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 

no respect ranking as co-ordinate authorities. That had 
produced some inconveniences in former reigns, and it was 
easy for Zebek-Dorchi to point the jealousy of the Russian 
courts to others more serious wliich might arise in future 

5 circumstances of war or other contingencies. It was re- 
solved, therefore, to place the sargatchi henceforward on a 
footing of perfect independence, and, therefore (as re- 
garded responsibility), on a footing of equality with the 
khan. Their independence, however, had respect only to 

10 their own sovereign ; for toward Russia they were placed 
in a new attitude of direct duty and accountability by the 
creation in their favor of small pensions (three hundred 
roubles a year), which, however, to a Kalmuck of that 
day were more considerable than might be supposed, and 

15 had a further value as marks of honorary distinction 
emanating from a grealr empress. Thus far the purposes 
of Zebek-Dorchi were served effectually for the moment; 
but, apparently, it was only for the moment; since, in the 
further development of his plots, this very dependency upon 

20 Russian influence would be the most serious obstacle in his 
way. There was, however, another point carried, which 
outweighed all inferior considerations, as it gave him a 
power of setting aside discretionally whatsoever should 
arise to disturb his plots— he was himself appointed presi- 

25 dent and controller of the sargatchi. The Russian court 
had been aware of his high pretensions by birth, and hoped 
by this promotion to satisfy the ambition which, in some 
degree, was acknowledged to be a reasonable passion for 
any man occupying his situation. 

30 Having thus completely blindfolded the Cabinet of 
Russia, Zebek-Dorchi proceeded in his new character to 
fulfill his political mission with the Khan of the Kalmucks. 
So artfully did he prepare the road for his favorable recep- 
tion at the court of this prince that he was at once and 

J3 Rouble. About seventy-seven cents in our money. 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 29 

universally welcomed as a public benefactor. The pensions 
of the councilors were so much additional wealth poured 
into the Tartar exchequer; as to the ties of dependency 
thus created, experience had not yet enlightened these 
simple tribes as to that result. And that he himself should 5 
be the chief of these mercenary councilors was so far 
from being charged upon Zebek as any offense or any 
ground of suspicion, that his relative the khan returned 
him hearty thanks for his services, under the belief that he 
could have accepted this appointment only with a view to 10 
keep out other and more unwelcome pretenders, who would 
not have had the same motives of consanguinity or friend- 
ship for executing its duties in a spirit of kindness to the 
Kalmucks. The first use which he made of his new func- 
tions about the khan's person was to attack the court 15 
of Russia, by a romantic villainy not easily to be credited, 
for those very acts of interference with the council which 
he himself had prompted. This was a dangerous step; but 
it was indispensable to his farther advance upon the gloomy 
path which he had traced out for himself. A triple venge- 20 
ance was what he njeditated : 1. Upon the Russian Cabinet, 
for having underv^alued his own pretensions to the throne; 

2. Upon his amiable rival, for having supplanted him ; and 

3. Upon all those of the nobility who had manifested their 
sense of his weakness by their neglect or their sense of his 25 
perfidious character by their suspicions. Here was a 
colossal outline of wickedness; and by one in his situation, 
feeble (as it might seem) for the accomplishment of its 
humblest parts, how was the total edifice to be reared in its 
comprehensive grandeur ? He, a worm as he was— could 30 
he venture to assail the mighty behemoth of Muscovy, the 
potentate who counted three hundred languages around 



31 Behemoth. In Hebrew, the great beast; used in Job xl. 15 for the 
hippopotamus. 
31 Muscovy. The old name for Russia. 



30 FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 

the footsteps of -his throne, and from whose "lion ramp" 
recoiled alike " baptized and infidel " — Christendom on the 
one side, strong by her intellect and her organization, and 
the "barbaric East "on the other, with her unnumbered 

5 numbers? The match was a monstrous one; but in its 
very monstrosity there lay this germ of encouragement — 
that it could not be suspected. The very hopelessness of 
the scheme grounded his hope; and he resolved to execute 
a vengeance which should involve as it were, in the unity 

10 of a well-laid tragic fable, all whom he judged to be his 
enemies. That vengeance lay in detaching from the Rus- 
sian empire the whole Kalmuck nation and breaking up 
that system of intercourse which had thus far been bene- 
ficial to both. This last was a consideration which moved 

15 him but little. True it was that Eussia to the Kalmucks 
had secured lands and extensive pasturage; true it was that 
the Kalmucks reciprocally to Russia had furnished a 
powerful cavalry ; but the latter loss would be part of his 
triumph, and the former might be more than compensated 

20 in other climates, under other sovereigns. Here was a 
scheme which, in its final accomplishment, would avenge 
him bitterly on the Czarina, and in the course of its'accom- 
plishment might furnish him with ample occasions for 
removing his other enemies. It may be readily supposed, 

25 indeed, that he who could deliberately raise his eyes to the 
Russian autocrat as an antagonist in single duel with him- 
self ^vas not likely to feel much anxiety about Kalmuck 
enemies of whatever rank. He took his resolution, there- 
fore, sternly and irrevocably, to effect this astonishing 

30 translation of an ancient people across the pathless deserts 
of Central Asia, intersected continually by rapid rivei's 
rarely furnished with bridges, and of which the fords were 

1 " Lion ramp." Lion's spring, Milton's " Samson Agonistes," 1. 139. Cf. 
the heraldic "lion rampant" and Shakespeare's "Henry IV.," Part I. 
(III. 1. 153): " A couching lion and a ramping cat." 

2 " Baptized and infidel." Milton's " Paradise Lost," I. 582. 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 31 

known only to those who might think it for their interest 
to conceal them, through many nations inhospitable or 
hostile — frost and snow around them (from the necessity 
of commencing their flight in the winter), famine in their 
front, and the saber, or even the artillery, of an offended 5 
and mighty empress hanging upon their rear for thousands 
of miles. But what was to be their final mark, the port of 
shelter, after so fearful a course of wandering ? Two 
things were evident: it must be some power at a great dis- 
tance from Russia, so as to make return even in that view 10 
hopeless, and it must be a power of sufficient rank to insure 
them protection from any hostile efforts on the part of the 
Czarina for reclaiming them or for chastising their revolt. 
Both conditions were united obviously in the person of 
Kien Long, the reigning Emperor of China, who was 15 
further recommended to them by his respect for the head 
of their religion. To China, therefore, and, as their first 
rendezvous, to the shadow of the great Chinese Wall, it 
was settled by Zebek that they should direct their flight. 

Next came the question of time. When should the flight 20 
commence ? and, finally, the more delicate question as to 
the choice of accomplices. To extend the knowledge of 
the conspiracy too far was to insure its betrayal to the 
Russian Government. Yet at some stage of the prepara- 
tions it was evident that a very extensive confidence must 25 
be made, because in no other way could the mass of the 
Kalmuck population be persuaded to furnish their families 
with the requisite equipments for so long a migration. 
This critical step, however, it was resolved to defer up to 
the latest possible moment, and, at all events, to make* no 30 
general communication on the subject until the time of 
departure should be definitely settled. In the meantime, 
Zebek admitted only three persons to his confidence — of 

>8 Chinese Wall. A great wall 1400 miles long, from fifteen to thirty feet 
high, running over mountains and valleys. It was built in the third century, 
B. c, as a protection against the inroads of Mongol invaders from the north. 



32 FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE. 

whom Oubacha, the reigning prince, was almost necessarily 
one; but him, for liis yielding and somewhat feeble char- 
acter, he viewed rather in the light of a tool than as one of 
his active accomplices. Those whom (if anybody) he ad- 

5 mitted to an unreserved participation in his counsels were 
two only — the great lama among the Kalmucks, and his 
own father-in-law, Erempel, a ruling prince of some tribe 
in the neighborhood of the Caspian Sea, recommended to 
his favor not so much by any strength of talent corre- 

losponding to the occasion as by his blind devotion to him- 
self and his passionate anxiety to promote the elevation of 
his daughter and his son-in-law to the throne of a sov- 
ereign prince. A titular prince Zebek already was, but this 
dignity, without the substantial accompaniment of a 

15 scepter, seemed but an empty sound to both of these ambi- 
tious rivals. The other accomplice, whose name was 
Loosang-Dchaltzan, and whose rank was that of lama, or 
Kalmuck pontiff, was a person of far more distinguished 
pretensions. He had something of the same gloomy and 

20 terrific pride which marked the character of Zebek himself, 
manifesting also the same energj^ accompanied by the 
same unfaltering cruelty, and a natural facility of dissimu- 
lation even more f)rofound. It was by this man that the 
other question was settled as to the time for giving effect 

25 to their designs. His own pontifical character had sug- 
gested to him that, in order to strengthen their influence 
with the vast mob of simple-minded men whom they were 
to lead into a howling wilderness, after persuading them 
to lay desolate their own ancient hearths, it was indispen- 

30 sable that they should be able, in cases of extremity, to 
plead the express sanction of God for their entire enter- 
prise. This could only be done by addressing themselves 
to the great head of their religion — the Dalai Lama of Tibet. 

« Lama. A priest of the belief called Lamaism, which is a modified form 
of Buddhism prevailing in Thibet, Mongolia, and some adjacent parts of Asia. 
The chief lama, or Dalai Lama, resides at Lassa in Tibet. 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 33 

Him they easily persuaded to countenance their schemes ; 
and an oracle was delivered solemnly at Tibet, to the effect 
that no ultimate prosperity would attend this great exodus 
unless it were pursued through the years of the tiger and 
the hare. Now the Kalmuck custom is to distinguish their 5 
years by attaching to each a denomination taken from one 
of twelve animals, the exact order of succession being ab- 
solutely fixed; so that the cycle revolves, of course, 
through a period of a dozen years. Consequently, if the 
approaching year of the tiger were suffered'to escape them, 10 
in that case the expedition must be delayed for twelve years 
more; within which period, even were no other unfavor- 
able changes to arise, it was pretty well foreseen that the 
Russian Government would taka most effectual means for 
bridling their vagrant propensities by a ring fence of forts. 15 
or military posts, to say nothing of the still readier plan for 
securing their fidelity (a plan already talked of in all 
quarters) by exacting a large body of hostages selected 
from the families of the most influential nobles. On these 
cogent considerations, it was solemnly determined that this 20 
terrific experiment should be made in the next year of the 
tiger, which happened to fall upon the Christian year 1771. 
With respect to the month, there was, unhappily for the 
Kalmucks, even less latitude allowed to their choice than 
with respect to the year. It was absolutely necessary, or it 25 
was thought so, that the different divisions of the nation, 
which pastured their flocks on both banks of the Wolga, 
should have the means of effecting an instantaneous junc- 
tion, because the danger of being intercepted by flying 
columns of the imperial armies was precisely the greatest 30 
at the outset. Now, from the want of bridges or sufficient 
river craft for transporting so vast a body of men, the sole 
means which could be depended upon (especially where so 
many women, children, and camels were concerned) was 
ice; and this, in a state of sufficient firmness, could not be 35 
absolutely counted upon before the month of January. 



34 FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 

Hence it happened that this astonishing exodus of a whole 
nation, before so much as a whisper of the design had 
begun to circulate amongst those wliom it most interested, 
before it was even suspected that any man's wishes pointed 

5 in that direction, had been definitely appointed for January 
of the year 1771 ; and, almost up to the Christmas of 1770, 
the poor, simple Kalmuck herdsmen and their families were 
going nightly to their peaceful beds without even dreaming 
that the^a^ had already gone forth from their rulers which 

10 consigned those quiet abodes, together with the peace and 
comfort which reigned within them, to a withering desola- 
tion, now close at hand. 

Meantime war raged on a great scale between Russia 
and the Sultan ; and, until tlie time arrived for throwing 

15 off their vassalage, it was necessary that Oubacha should 
contribute his usual contingent of martial aid ; nay, it had 
unfortunately become prudent that he should contribute 
much more than his usual aid. Human experience gives 
ample evidence that in some mysterious and unaccount- 

20 able way no great design is ever agitated, no matter 
how few or how faithful may be the participators, but 
that some presentiment — some dim misgiving — is kindled 
amongst those whom it is chiefly important to blind. And, 
however it might have happened, certain it is that 

25 already, when as yet no syllable of the conspiracy had 
been breathed to any man whose very existence w^as not 
staked upon its concealment, nevertheless some vague and 
uneasy jealousy had arisen in the Russian Cabinet as to the 
future schemes of the Kalmuck khan; and very probable 

30 it is that, but for the war then raging, and the consequent 
prudence of conciliating a very important vassal, or, at 
least, of abstaining from what would powerfully alienate 
him, even at that moment such measures would have been 
adopted as must forever have intercepted the Kalmuck 

35 schemes. Slight as were the jealousies of the imperial 

13 War. Catharine's first Turkish war began in 1768 and ended in 1774. 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 35 

court, they had not escaped the Machiavelian eyes of 
Zebek and the lama; and under then' guidance, Oubacha, 
bending to the circumstances of the moment, and meeting 
the jealousy of the Russian court with a policy corre- 
sponding to their own, strove by unusual zeal to efface 5 
the Czarina's unfavorable impressions. He enlarged the 
scale of his contributions, and that so prodigiously that 
he absolutely carried to headquarters a force of thirty-five 
thousand cavalry, fully equipped. Some go further, and 
rate the amount beyond forty thousand ; but the smaller 10 
estimate is, at all events, within the truth. 

With this magnificent array of cavalry, heavy as well 
as light, the khan went into the field under great expec- 
tations; and these he more than realized. Having the 
good fortune to be concerned with so ill-organized and 15 
disorderly a description of force as that which at all times 
composed the bulk of a Turkish army, he carried victory 
along with his banners; gained many partial successes; 
and at last, in a pitched battle, overthrew the Turkish force 
opposed to him, with a loss of five thousand men left upon 20 
the field. 

These splendid achievements seemed likely to operate in 
various ways against the impending revolt. Oubacha had 
now a strong motive, in the martial glory acquired, for 
continuing his connection with the empire in whose 25 
service he had won it and by whom only it could be fully 
appreciated. He was now a great marshal of a great 
empire— one of the Paladins around the imperial throne. 
In China he would be nobody, or (worse than that) a 
mendicant alien, prostrate at the feet, and soliciting theSo 
precarious alms, of a prince with whom he had no con- 
nection. Besides it might reasonably be expected that the 
Czarina, grateful for the really efficient aid given by the 

19 In a pitched battle. It has been pointed out that there was no battle 
in the Empress Catharine's first Turkish war answering to De Quincey's 
description. 



36 FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 

Tartar prince, would confer upon him such eminent 
rewards as might be sufficient to anchor his hopes upon 
Russia and to wean him from every possible seduction. 
These were the obvious suggestions of prudence and good 

5 sense to everj'^ man who stood neutral in the case. But 
they were disappointed. The Czarina knew her obligations 
to the khan; but she did iiot acknowledge them. Where- 
fore? That is a mystery perhaps never to be explained. 
So it was, however. The khan went unhonored; no ukase 

10 ever proclaimed his merits; and, perhaps, had he even 
been abundantly recompensed by Russia, there were others 
who would have defeated these tendencies to reconciliation. 
Erempel, Zebek, and Loosang the lama were pledged life- 
deep to prevent any accommodation ; and their efforts were 

15 unfortunately seconded by those of their deadliest enemies. 
In the Russian court there were at that time some great 
nobles preoccupied with feelings of hatred and blind malice 
toward the Kalmucks quite as strong as any which the 
Kalmucks could harbor toward Russia, and not, perhaps, 

20 so well founded. Just as much as the Kalmucks hated the 
Russian yoke, their galling assumption of authority, the 
marked air of disdain, as toward a nation of ugly, stupid, 
and filthy barbarians, which too generally marked the 
Russian bearing and language — but, above all, the insolent 

25 contempt, or even outrages, which the Russian governors 
or great military commandants tolerated in their followers 
toward the barbarous religion and superstitious mum- 
meries of the Kalmuck priesthood— precisely in that 
extent did the ferocity of the Russian resentment, and 

30 their wrath at seeing the trampled worm turn or attempt 
a feeble retaliation, react upon the unfortunate Kalmucks. 
At this crisis it is probable that envy and wounded pride, 
upon witnessing the splendid victories of Oubacha and 
Momotbacha over the Turks and Bashkirs, contributed 

35 strength to the Russian irritation ; and it must have been 

3* Bashkirs. A nomadic tribe in the south of Ruseia. 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 37 

through the intrigues of those nobles about her person who 
chiefly smarted under these feelings that the Czarina could 
ever have lent herself to the unwise and ungrateful policy 
pursued at this critical period toward the Kalmuck khan. 
That Czarina was no longer Elizabeth Petrowna; it was 5 
Catharine II.— a princess who did not often err so 
injuriously (injuriously for herself as much as for others) 
in the measures of her government. She had soon ample 
reason for repenting of her false policy. Meantime, how 
much it must have co-operated with the -other motives lo 
previously acting upon Oubacha in sustaining his deter- 
mination to revolt, and how powerfully it must have 
assisted the efiPorts of all the Tartar chieftains in preparing 
the minds of their people to feel the necessity of this 
difficult enterprise, by arming their pride and their 15 
suspicions against the Eussian Government, through the 
keenness of their sympathy with the wrongs of their 
insulted prince, may be readily imagined. It is a fact, and 
it has been confessed by candid Russians themselves when 
treating of this great dismemberment, that the conduct of 20 
the Russian Cabinet throughout the period of suspense, and 
during the crisis of hesitation in the Kalmuck council, was 
exactly such as was most desirable for the purposes of the 
conspirators; it was such, in fact, as to set the seal to all 
their machinations, by supplying distinct evidences and 25 
official vouchers for what could otherwise have been at 
the most matters of doubtful suspicion and indirect pre- 
sumption. 

Nevertheless, in the face of all these arguments, and 
even allowing their weight so far as not at all to deny the 30 
injustice or the impolicy of the imperial ministers, it is 

■ fl Catharine II. Elizabeth Petrowna became empress in 1741. Her reign 
was characterized by the capricious rule of women and favorites. She was 
succeeded by her nephew, Peter III., who was deposed and imprisoned by his 
wife, the energetic and immoral Catharine II. This empress was, with the 
exception of Peter the Great, the greatest ruler Russia has ever had, and her 
reign was marked by signal diplomatic and military successes. 



38 FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 

contended by many persons who have reviewed the affair 
with a command of all the documents bearing on the case, 
more especially the letters or minutes of council subse- 
quently discovered, in the handwriting of Zebek-Dorchi, 

5 and the important evidence of the Russian captive Wesel- 
off, who was carried off by the Kalmucks in their flight, 
that be^'ond all doubt Oubacha was powerless for any pur- 
pose of impeding, or even of delaying, the revolt. He 
himself, indeed, was under religious obligations of the 

lo most terrific solemnity never to flinch from the enterprise 
or even to slacken in his zeal; for Zebek-Dorchi, distrust- 
ing the firmness of his resolution under any unusual pres- 
sure of alarm or difficulty, had, in the very earliest stage 
of the conspiracy, availed himself of the khan's well- 

15 known superstition, to engage him, by means of previous 
concert with the priests and their head the lama, in some 
dark and mysterious rites of consecration, terminating in 
oaths under such terrific sanctions as no Kalmuck would 
have courage to violate. As far, therefore, as regarded 

20 the personal share of the khan in what was to come, Zebek 
was entirely- at his ease. He knew him to be so deeply 
pledged by religious terroi*s to the prosecution of the con- 
spiracy that no honoi^s within the Czarina's gift could have 
possibly shaken his adhesion : and then, as to threats from 

25 the same quarter, he knew him to be sealed against those 
fears by others of a gloomier character and better adapted 
to his peculiar temperament. For Oubacha was a brave 
man, as respected all bodily enemies or the dangers of 
human warfare, but was as sensitive and timid as the most 

30 supei'stitious of old women in facing the frowns of a priest 
or under the vague anticipations of ghostly retributions. 
But had it been otherwise, and had there been any reason 
to apprehend an unsteady demeanor on the part of this 
prince at the approach of the critical moment, such were 

3^ the changes already effected in the state of their domestic 
» WeselofF. See page 44. 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 39 

politics amongst the Tartars by the undermining arts of 
Zebek-Dorchi, and his ally the lama, that very little 
importance would have attached to that doubt. All power 
was now effectually lodged in the hands of Zebek-Dorchi. 
He was the true and absolute wielder of the Kalmuck 5 
scepter. All measures of importance were submitted to 
his discretion, and nothing was finally resolved but under 
his dictation. This result he had brought about in a year 
or two by means sufficiently simple : first^of all, by avail- 
ing himself of the prejudice in his favor, so largely diffused 10 
amongst the lowest of the Kalmucks, that his own title to 
the throne, in quality of great-grandson in a direct line 
from Ajouka, the most illustrious of all the Kalmuck 
khans, stood upon a better basis than that of Oubacha, who 
derived from a collateral branch; secondly, with respect to 15 
that sole advantage which Oubacha possessed above himself 
in the ratification of his title, by improving this difference 
between their situations to the disadvantage of his competi- 
tor, as one who had not scrupled to accept that triumph from 
an alien power at the price of his independence, which he 20 
himself (as he would have it understood) disdained to court; 
thirdly, by his own talents and address, coupled with the 
ferocious energy of his moral character ; fourthly, —and per- 
haps in an equal degree,— by the criminal facility and good 
nature of Oubacha; finally (which is remarkable enough, 25 
as illustrating the character of the man), by that very new 
modeling of the sarga, or privy council, which he had 
used as a principal topic of abuse and malicious insinuation 
against the Russian Government, whilst in reality he first 
had suggested the alteration to the Empress, and he chiefly 30 
appropriated the political advantages which it was fitted to 
yield. For, as he was himself appointed the chief of the 
sargatchi, and as the pensions of the inferior sargatchi 
passed through his hands, whilst in effect they owed their 
appointments to his nomination, it may be easily supposed 35 
that wliatever power existed in the state capable of con" 



40 FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 

trolling the khan, being held by the sarga under its new 
organization, and this body being completely under his 
influence, the final result was to throw all the functions of 
the state, whether nominally in the prince or in the council, 

5 substantially into the hands of this one man ; whilst, at the 
same time, from the strict league which he maintained 
with the lama, all the thunders of the spiritual power 
were always ready to come in aid of the magistrate or to 
supply his incapacity in cases which he could not reach. 

ID But the time was now rapidly approaching for the 
mighty experiment. The day was drawing near on which 
the signal was to be given for raising the standard of 
revolt, and, by a combined movement on both sides of the 
Wolga, for spreading the smoke of one vast conflagration 

15 that should wrap in a common blaze their own huts 
and the stately cities of their enemies over the breadth and 
length of those great provinces in which their flocks were 
dispersed. The year of the tiger was now within one 
little month of its commencement. The fifth morning of 

20 that year was fixed for the fatal day when the fortunes and 
happiness of a whole nation were to be put upon the 
hazard of a dicer's throw ; and, as yet, that nation was in 
profound ignorance of the whole plan. The khan, such 
was the kindness of his nature, could not bring himself to 

25 make the revelation so urgently required. It was clear, 
however, that this could not be delayed ; and Zebek-Dorchi 
took the task willingly upon himself. But where or how 
should this notification be made, so as to exclude Russian 
hearers? After some deliberation, the following plan was 

30 adopted: Couriers, it was contrived, should arrive in furi- 
ous haste, one upon the heels of anothei% reporting a 
sudden inroad of tlie Kirghises and Bashkirs upon the 
Kalmuck lands at a point distant about one hundred and 
twenty miles. Thither all the Kalmuck families, according 

32 Kirghises. A wandering people of mixed Tartar and Mongolian stock, 
in Turkestan. 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 41 

to immemorial custom, were required to send a separate 
representative ; and there, accordingly, within three days, 
all appeared. The distance, the solitary ground appointed 
for the rendezvous, the rapidity of the march, all tended 
to make it almost certain that no Russian could be present. 5 
Zebek-Dorch i then came forward. He did not waste many 
words upon rhetoric. He unfurled an immense sheet of 
parchment, visible from the outermost distance at which 
any of this vast crowd could stand. The total number 
amounted to eighty thousand : all saw, and many heard. 10 
They were told of the oppressions of Russia ; of her pride 
and haughty disdain, evidenced toward tliem by a thou- 
sand acts; of her contempt for their religion; of her 
determination to reduce them to absolute slavery; of the 
preliminary measures she had already taken by erecting 15 
forts upon many of the great rivers of their neighborliood; 
of the ulterior intentions she thus announced to circum- 
scribe their pastoral lands, until they would all be obliged 
to renounce their flocks, and to collect in towns like 
Sarepta, there to pursue mechanical and servile trades of 20 
shoemaker, tailor, and weaver, sucli as the freeborn Tartar 
had always disdained. "Then, again," said the subtle 
prince, ''she increases her military levies upon our popula- 
tion every year. We pour out our blood as young men in 
her defense, or, more often, in support of her insolent 25 
aggressions; and, as old men, we reap nothing from our 
suflterings nor benefit by our survivorship where so many 
are sacrificed." At this point of his harangue Zebek pro- 
duced several papei^ (forged, as it is generally believed, by 
himself and the lama), containing projects of the Russian 30 
court for a general transfer of the eldest sons, taken en 
masse from the greatest Kalmuck families, to the imperial 
court. "Now, let this be once accomplished," he argued, 

20 Sarepta. A manufacturing town on the Volga in tlie south of Russia. 
«» En masse. A French expression, meaning " in a body." 



42 FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 

"and there is an end of all useful resistance from that day- 
forwards. Petitions we might make, or even remonstrances ; 
as men of words, we might play a bold part ; but for deeds ; 
for that sort of language by which our ancestors were 

5 used to speak ; holding us by such a chain, Russia would 
make a jest of our wishes, knowing full well that w^e 
should not dare to make any effectual movement," 

Having thus sufficiently roused the angry passions of 
his vast audience, and having alarmed their fears by this 

ID pretended scheme against their firstborn (an artifice which 
was indispensable to his purpose, because it met before- 
hand every form of amendment to his proposal coming 
from the more moderate nobles, who would not otherwise 
have failed to insist upoi> trying the effect of bold addresses 

15 to the Empress before resorting to any desperate extremity), 
Zebek-Dorchi opened his scheme of revolt, and, if so, of 
instant revolt ; since any preparations reported at St. 
Petersburg would be a signal for the armies of Russia to 
cross into such positions from all parts of Asia as would 

20 effectually intercept their march. It is remarkable, how- 
ever, that with all his audacity and his reliance upon the 
momentary excitement of the Kalmucks, the subtle prince 
did not venture, at this stage of his seduction, to make so 
startling a proposal as that of a flight to China. All that 

25 he held out for the present was a rapid march to the Tamba 
or some other great river, which they were to cross, and 
to take up a strong position on the farther bank, from 
which, as from a post of conscious security, they could hold 
a bolder language to the Czarina, and one which would have 

30 a better chance of winning a favorable audience. 

These things, in the irritated condition of the simple 
Tartars, passed by acclamation ; and all returned homeward 
to push forward with the most furious speed the prepara- 
tions for their awful undertaking. Rapid and energetic 

35 these of necessity were ; and in that degree they became 
noticeable and manifest to the Russians who happened to 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 43 

be intermingled with the different hordes, either on com- 
mercial errands or as agents officially from the Russian 
Grovern men t— some in a financial, others in a diplomatic 
character. 

Among these last (indeed, at the head of them) was a 5 
Russian of some distinction, by name Kichinskoi— a man 
memorable for his vanity, and memorable also as one of 
the many victims to the Tartar revolution. This Kich- 
inskoi had been sent by the Empress as her envoy to 
overlook the conduct of the Kalmucks. He was styled the 10 
grand pristaw, or great commissioner, and was universally 
known amongst the Tartar tribes by this title. His mixed 
character of ambassador and of political surveillant, com- 
bined with the dependent state of the Kalmucks, gave him 
a real weight in the Tartar councils, and might have given 15 
him a far greater had not his outrageous self-conceit and 
his arrogant confidence in his own authority, as due 
chiefly to his personal qualities for command, led him 
into such harsh displays of power, and menaces so odious 
to the Tartar pride, as very soon made him an object of 20 
their profoundest malice. He had publicly insulted the 
khan; and, upon making a communication to him to the 
effect that some reports began to circulate, and even to 
reach the Empress, of a design in agitation to fly from the 
imperial dominions, he had ventured to say, " But this you 25 
dare not attempt. I laugh at such rumors; yes, khan, I 
laugh at them to the Empress ; for you are a chained bear, 
and that you know." The khan turned away on his heel 
with marked disdain; and the pristaw, foaming at the 
mouth, continued to utter, amongst those of the khan's 30 
attendants who stayed behind to catch his real sentiments in 
a moment of unguarded passion, all that the blindest 
frenzy of rage could suggest to the most presumptuous of 
fools. It was now ascertained that suspicion had arisen ; 
but, at the same time, it was ascertained that the pristaw 35 

13 Surveillant. French for " overseer." 



44 FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 

spoke no more than the truth in representing himself to 
have discredited these suspicions. The fact was that the 
mere infatuation of vanity made him believe that nothing- 
could go on undetected by his all-piercing sagacity, and 

5 that no rebellion could prosper when rebuked by his com- 
manding presence. The Tartars, therefore, pursued their 
preparations, confiding in the obstinate blindness of the 
grand pristaw as in their perfect safeguard. And such 
it proved, to his own ruin as well as that of myriads 

10 beside. 

Christmas arrived ; and a little before that time courier 
upon courier came dropping in, one upon the very heels of 
another, to St. Petersburg, assuring the Czarina that beyond 
all doubt the Kalmucks were in the very crisis of depar- 

15 ture. These dispatches came from the governor of Astra- 
khan, and copies were instantly forwarded to Kichinskoi. 
Now, it happened that between this governor— a Russian 
named Beketoff — and the pristaw had been an ancient 
feud. The very name of Beketoff inflamed his resent- 

2oment; and no sooner did he see that hated name attached 
to the dispatch than he felt himself confirmed in his for- 
mer views with tenfold bigotry, and wrote instantly, in 
terms of the most pointed ridicule, against the new 
alarmist, pledging his own head upon the visionariness 

25 of his alarms. Beketoff, however, was not to be put down 
by a few hard words or by ridicule. He persisted in his 
statements. The Russian ministry were confounded by 
the obstinacy of the disputants; and some were beginning 
even to treat the governor of Astrakhan as a bore, and as 

30 the dupe of his own nervous terrors, when the memorable 
day ari'ived, the fatal 5tli of January, which forever ter- 
minated the dispute and put a seal upon the earthly hopes 
and fortunes of unnumbered myriads. The governor of 
Astrakhan was the first to hear the news. Stung by the 

35 mixed furies of jealousy, of triumphant vengeance, and of 
anxious ambition, he sprang into his sledge, and, at the 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 45 

rate of three hundred miles a day, pursued his route to St. 
Petersburg, rushed into the imperial presence, announced 
the total realization of his worst predictions, and, upon the 
confirmation of this intelligence by subsequent dispatches 
from many different posts on the Wolga, he received an 5 
imperial commission to seize the person of his deluded 
enemy and to keep him in strict captivity. These orders 
were eagerly fulfilled; and the unfortunate Kichinskoi 
soon afterwards expired of grief and mortification in the 
gloomy solitude of a dungeon — a victim to his own irameas- 10 
urable vanity and the blinding self-delusions of a presump- 
tion that refused all warning. 

The governor of Astrakhan had been but too faithful a 
prophet. Perhaps even he was surprised at the suddenness 
with which the verification followed his reports. Precisely 15 
on the 5th of January, the day so solemnly appointed under 
religious sanctions by the lama, the Kalmucks on the east 
bank of the Wolga were seen at the earliest dawn of day 
assembling by troops and squadrons and in the tumultuous 
movement of some great morning of battle. Tens of thou- 20 
sands continued moving off the ground at every half hour's 
interval. Women and children, to the amount of two 
hundred thousand and upward, were placed upon wagons 
or upon camels, and drew off by masses of twenty thou- 
sand at once, placed under suitable escorts, and continually 25 
swelled in numbers by other outlying bodies of the horde, 
who kept falling in at various distances upon the first and 
second day's march. From sixty to eighty thousand of 
those who were the best mounted stayed behind the rest of 
the tribes, with purposes of devastation and plunder more 30 
violent than prudence justified or the amiable character of 
the khan could be supposed to approve. But in this, as in 
other instances, he was completely overruled by the malig- 
nant counsels of Zebek-Dorchi. The first tempest of the 
desolating fury of the Tartars discharged itself upon their 35 
own habitations. But this, as cutting off all infirm looking 



46 FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 

backward from the hardships of then- march, had been 
thought so necessary a measure by all the chieftains that 
even Oubacha himself was the first to authorize the act by 
his own example. He seized a torch, previously prepared 
5 with materials the most durable as well as combustible and 
steadily applied it to the timbers of his own palace. Noth- 
ing was saved from tlie general wreck except the portable 
part of the domestic utensils and that part of the woodwork 
which could be applied to the manufacture of the long 
10 Tartar lances. This chapter in their memorable day's 
work being finished, and the whole of their villages 
throughout a district of ten thousand square miles in one 
simultaneous blaze, the Tartars waited for further orders 
These, it was intended, should have taken a character of 
15 valedictory vengeance, and thus have left beliind to the 
Czarina a dreadful commentary upon the main motives 
of their flight. It was the purpose of Zebek-Dorclii that 
all the Russian towns, churches, and buildings of every 
description should be given up to pillage and destruction 
20 and such treatment applied to the defenseless inhabitants 
as might naturally be expected from a fierce people already 
infuriated by the spectacle of their own outrages and by the 
bloody retaliations which they must necessarily have pro- 
voked. This part of the tragedy, however, was happily 
25 intercepted by a providential disappointment at the very 
crisis of departure. It has been mentioned already that the 
motive for selecting the depth of winter as the season of 
flight (which otherwise was obviously the very worst pos- 
sible) had been the impossibility of eff'ecting a junction 
30 sufficiently rapid with the tribes on the west of the Wolga in 
the absence of bridges, unless by a natural bridge of ice 
For this one advantage the Kalmuck leaders had consented 
to aggravate by a thousand fold the calamities inevitable to 
a rapid flight over boundless tracts of counti-y with women 
35 children, and herds of cattle-for this one single advan- 
tage; and yet, after all, it was lost. The reason never has 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 47 

been explained satisfactorily: but the fact was such. 
Some have said that the signals were not properly con- 
certed for marking the moment of absolute departure; that 
is, for signifying whether the settled intention of the 
eastern Kalmucks might not have been suddenly inter- 5 
rupted by adverse intelligence. Others have supposed that 
the ice might not be equally strong on both sides of the 
river, and might even be generally insecure for the tread- 
ing of heavy and heavily laden animals such as camels. 
But the prevailing notion is that some accidental move- 10 
ments on the 3d and 4th of January of Russian troops in 
the neighborhood of the western Kalmucks, though really 
having no reference to them or their plans, had been con- 
strued into certain signs that all was discovered, and that 
the prudence of the western chieftains, who, from situa- 15 
tion, had never been exposed to those intrigues by which 
Zebek-Dorchi had practiced upon the pride of the eastern 
tribes, now stepped in to save their people from ruin. Be 
the cause what it might, it is certain that the western Kal- 
mucks were in some way prevented from forming the 20 
intended junction with their brethren of the opposite bank; 
and the result was that at least one hundred thousand of 
these Tartars were left behind in Russia. This accident it 
was which saved their Russian neighbors universally from 
the desolation which else awaited them. One general 25 
massacre and conflagration would assuredly have surprised 
them, to the utter extermination of their property, their 
houses, and themselves, had it not been for this diappoint- 
ment. But the eastern chieftains did not dare to put to 
hazard tlie safety of their brethren under the first impulse 30 
of the Czarina's vengeance for so dreadful a tragedy ; for, as 
they were well aware of too many circumstances by which 
she might discover the concurrence of the western people 
in the general scheme of revolt, they justly feared that she 
would thence infer their concurrence also in the bloody 35 
events which marked its outset. 



48 FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 

Little did the western Kalmucks guess what reasons they 
also had for gratitude on account of an interposition so 
unexpected, and which, at the moment, they so generally 
deplored. Could they but have witnessed the thousandth 

5 part of the sufferings which overtook their eastern brethren 
in the first month of their sad flight, they would have 
blessed Heaven for their own narrow escape; and yet these 
sufferings of the first month were but a prelude or foretaste 
comparatively slight of those which afterward succeeded. 

lo For now began to unroll the most awful series of 
calamities, and the most extensive, which is anywhere 
recorded to have visited the sons and daughters of men. It 
is possible that the sudden inroads of destroying nations, 
such as the Huns, or the Avars, or the Mongol Tartars, 

15 may have inflicted misery as extensive; but there the 
misery and the desolation would be sudden, like the fliglit 
of volleying lightning. Those who were spared at first 
would generally be spared to the end; those who perished 
would perish instantly. It is possible that the French 

20 retreat from Moscow may have made some nearer approach 
to this calamity in duration, though still a feeble and 
miniature approach; for the French sufferings did not 
commence in good earnest until about one month from the 
time of leaving Moscow; and though it is true that after- 

25 ward the vials of wrath were emptied upon the devoted 
army for six or seven weeks in succession, yet what is that 
to this Kalmuck tragedy, which lasted for more than 



13 Destroying nations. From the third to the thirteenth centuries Euro- 
pean history is marked by the conquering migrations of barbaric hordes. The 
inroads of the Huns, a Mongolian race, began in 375, when they crossed the 
Volga and fell upon the Goths, forcing them across the Danube. Later, under 
their great leader, Attila, they threatened Rome itself. The incursions of the 
Avars extended from the sixth century to the end of the eighth, when they were 
subdued by Charlemagne. The great conquests of the Mongol Tartars were 
under the leadership of Genghis Khan (1160-1227), who conquered and founded 
a Mongolian empire which extended from Poland to China. 

83 Vials of wrath. Revelation xvi. 1. 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 49 

as many months? But the main feature of horror, by 
which the Tartar march was distinguished from the French, 
lies in the accompaniment of women (i) and children. There 
were both, it is true, with the French army, but so few as 
to bear no visible proportion to the total numbers con- 5 
cerned. The French, in short, were merely an army — a 
host of professional destroyers, whose regular trade was 
bloodshed and whose regular element was danger and 
suffering; but the Tartars were a nation carrying along 
with them more than two hundred and fifty thousand 10 
women and children, utterly unequal, for-the most part, to 
any contest with the calamities before them. The children 
of Israel were in the same circumstances as to the accom- 
paniment of their families; but they were released from 
the pursuit of their enemies in a very early stage of their 15 
flight ; and their subsequent residence in the desert was not 
a march, bnt a continued halt, and under a continued 
interposition of Heaven for their comfortable support. 
Earthquakes, again, however comprehensive in their 
ravages, are shocks of a moment's duration. A much 20 
nearer approach made to the wide range and the long 
duration of the Kalmuck tragedy may have been in a 
pestilence such as that whicli visited Athens in the 
Peloponnesian war or London in the reign of Charles II. 
There, also, the martyrs were counted by myriads, and the 25 
period of the desolation was counted by months. But, 
after all, the total amount of destruction was on a smaller 
scale; and there was this feature of alleviation to the 

23 Pestilence. These were among the greatest pestilences that have ever 
visited mankind. That at Athens broke out in 430 B. c, caused largely by the 
crowded condition of the city during the war. Thousands perished, and 
among them Pericles, Athens' most honored citizen. The famous plague of 
London in 1665 has been most graphically described by Daniel Defoe, the 
author of " Robinson Crusoe." Defoe pretends to have been present in London 
during the course of the plague, but this has been proved to be fictitious, 
in view of the fact that he was only four years old at the time. The mor- 
tality during this pestilence was fearful, almost forty thousand dying during 
the month of September alone, according to Defoe's account. 



50 FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 

conscious pressure of the calamity — that the misery was 
withdrawn from public notice into private chambers and 
hospitals. The siege of Jerusalem by Vespasian and 
his son, taken in its entire circumstances, comes nearest of 

5 all, for breadth and depth of suffering, for duration, for the 
exasperation of the suffering from without by internal 
feuds, and, finally, for that last most appalling expression 
of the furnace heat of the anguish in its power to extinguish 
the natural affections even of maternal love. But, after 

10 all, each case had circumstances of romantic misery 

peculiar to itself — circumstances without precedent, and, 

(wherever human nature is ennobled by Cliristianity,) it 

may be confidently hoped, never to be repeated. 

Tlie first point to be reached, before any hope of repose 

15 could be encouraged, was the River Jaik. This was not 
above three hundred miles from the main point of departure 
on the Wolga; and, if the march thither was to be a forced 
one and a severe one, it was alleged, on the other hand, 
that the suffering would be the more brief and transient ; 

20 one summary exertion, not to be repeated, and all was 
achieved. Forced the march was, and severe beyond 
example — there the forewarning proved correct; but the 
promised rest proved a mere phantom of the wilderness — a 
visionary rainbow, which fled before their hope-sick eyes, 

25 across these interminable solitudes, for seven months of 
hardship and calamity, without a pause. These sufferings, 
by their very nature and the circumstances under which 
they arose, were (like the scenery of the steppes) somewhat 
monotonous in their coloring and external features; what 

30 variety, however, there was, will be most naturally 
exhibited by tracing historically the successive stages of 
the general misery exactly as it unfolded itself under the 
double agency of weakness still increasing from within and 
hostile pressure from without. Viewed in this manner, 

» Maternal love. Josephus relates that it was not uncommon for a mother 
to kill her own babe for food. 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 51 

under the real order of development, it is remarkable that 
these sufferings of the Tartars, though under the molding 
hands of accident, arrange themselves almost with a sceiii- 
cal propriety. They seem combined as with the skill of an 
artist, the intensity of the misery advancing regularly with 5 
the advances of the march, and the stages of the calamity 
corresponding to the stages of the route; so that, upon rais- 
ing the curtain which veils the great catastrophe, we 
behold one vast climax of anguish, towering upward by 
regular gradations as if constructed artificially for pictur- 10 
esque effect — a result which might not have been surpris- 
ing had it been reasonable to anticipate the same rate of 
speed, and even an accelerated rate, as prevailing through 
the later stages of the expedition. But it seemed, on the 
contrary, most reasonable to calculate upon a continual 15 
decrement in the rate of motion according to the increasing 
distance from the headquarters of the pursuing enemy. 
This calculation, however, was defeated by the extraordi- 
nary circumstance that the Russian armies did not begin to 
close in very fiercely upon the Kalmucks until after they 20 
had accomplished a distance of full two thousand miles. 
One thousand miles farther on the assaults became even 
more tumultuous and murderous; and already the great 
shadows of . the Chinese Wall were dimly descried, when 
the frenzy and acharnement oi the pursuers and the bloody 25 
desperation of the miserable fugitives had reached its utter- 
most extremity. Let us briefly rehearse the main stages of 
the misery and trace the ascending steps of the tragedy, 
according to the great divisions of the route marked out by 
the central rivers of Asia. 30 

The first stage, we have already said, was from the 
Wolga to the Jaik; the distance about three hundred miles; 
the time allowed seven days. For the first week, therefore, 
the rate of marching averaged about forty-three English 
miles a day. The weather was cold, but bracing; and, at 35 
25 Acharnement. Fierce rage (French), 



52 FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 

a more moderate pace, this part of the journey might have 
been accomplished without much distress by a people as 
hardy as the Kalmucks. As it was, the cattle suffered 
greatly from overdriving; milk began to fail even for the 

5 children ; the sheep perished by wholesale ; and the children 
themselves were saved only by the innumerable camels. 

The Cossacks who d welt upon the banks of the Jaik were 
the first among the subjects of Russia to come into collision 
with the Kalnmcks. Great was their surprise at the sudden- 

loness of the irruption, and great also their consternation; 
for, according to their settled custom, by far the greater 
part of their number was absent during the winter months 
at the fisheries upon the Caspian. Some who were liable 
to surprise at the most exposed points fled in crowds to the 

15 fortress of Koulagina, which was immediately invested 
and summoned by Oubacha. He had, however, in his 
train only a few light pieces of artillery; and the Russian 
commandant at Koulagina, being aware of the hurried cir- 
cumstances in which tlie khan was placed, and that he 

20 stood upon the very edge, as it were, of a renewed flight, 
felt encouraged by tiiese considerations to a more obstinate 
resistance than might else have been advisable with an 
enemy so little disposed to observe the usages of civilized 
warfare. The period of his anxiety was not long. On the 

25 fifth day of the siege he descried from the walls a succes- 
sion of Tartar couriers, mounted upon fleet Bactrian 
camels, crossing the vast plains around the fortress at a 
furious pace and riding into the Kalmuck encampment at 
various points. Great agitation appeared immediately to 

30 follow. Orders were soon after dispatched in all direc- 
tions; and it became speedily known that upon a distant 
flank of the Kalmuck movement a bloody and exterminat- 
ing battle had been fought tlie day before, in which one 
entire tribe of the khan's dependents, numbering not less 

35 than nine thousand fighting men, had perished to the last 
man. This was the ouloss, or clan, called Feka-Zechorr, 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 53 

between whom and the Cossacks there was a feud of 
ancient standing. In selecting-, therefore, the points of 
attack, on occasion of the present hasty inroad, the Cossack 
chiefs were naturally eager so to direct their efforts as to 
combine with the service of the Empress some gratification 5 
to their own party hatreds, more especially as the present 
was likely to be their final opportunity for revenge if the 
Kalmuck evasion should prosper. Having, therefore, con- 
centrated as large a body of Cossack cavalry as circum- 
stances allowed, they attacked the hostile ouloss with a 10 
precipitation which denied to it all means fbr communicat- 
ing with Oubacha; for the necessity of commanding an 
ample range of pasturage, to meet the necessities of their 
vast flocks and herds, had separated this ouloss from the 
khan's headquarters by an interval of eighty miles; and 15 
thus it was, and not from oversight, that it came to be 
thrown entirely upon its own resources. These had proved 
insuflScient. Retreat, from the exhausted state of their 
horses and camels, no less than from the prodigious encum- 
brances of their live stock, was absolutely out of the question. 20 
Quarter was disdained on the one side, and would not have 
been granted on the other; and thus it had happened that 
the setting sun of that one day (the thirteenth from the first 
opening of the revolt) threw his parting rays upon the final 
agonies of an ancient ouloss, stretched upon a bloody field, 25 
who on that day's dawning had held and styled themselves 
an independent nation. 

Universal consternation was diffused through the wide 
borders of the khan's encampment by this disastrous intel- 
ligence, not so much on account of the numbers slain, or 30 
the total extinction of a powerful ally, as because the posi- 
tion of the Cossack force was likely to put to hazard the 
future advances of the Kalmucks, or at least to retard and 

8 Evasion. De Quincey's close adherence to etymological meanings is well 
shown in this word, which he uses in the uniu^nal translated meaning of "a 
walking-out," as invasion means a walking in (by the use of force). 



54 FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 

hold them in check until the heavier columns of the Rus- 
sian army should arrive upon their flanks. The siege of 
Koulagina was instantly raised ; and that signal, so fatal 
to the happiness of the women and their children, once 

5 again resounded through the tents— the signal for flight, 
and this time for a flight more rapid than ever. About one 
hundred and fifty miles ahead of their present position 
there arose a tract of hilly country, forming a sort of mar- 
gin to the vast, sealike expanse of champaign savannas, 

ID steppes, and occasionally of sandy deserts, which stretched 
away on each side of this margin both eastwards and west- 
wards. Pretty nearly in tlie center of this hilly range lay 
a narrow defile, through which passed the nearest and the 
most practicable route to tlie River Torgau (the farther 

15 bank of which river offered the next great station of secu- 
rity for a general halt). It was the more essential to gain 
this pass before the Cossacks, inasmuch as not only vrould 
the delay in forcing the pass give time to the Russian pur- 
suing columns for combining their attacks and for bringing 

20 up their artillery, but also because (even if all enemies in 
pursuit were thrown out of the question) it was held, by 
those best acquainted with the difficult and obscure geog- 
raphy of these pathless steppes, that the loss of this one 
narrow strait amongst the hills would have the effect of 

25 throwing them (as their only alternative in a case where 
so wide a sweep of pasturage was required) upon a circuit 
of at least five hundred miles extra ; besides tliat, after all, 
this circuitous route would carry them to the Torgau at a 
point unfitted for the passage of their heavy baggage. The 

30 defile in the hills, therefore, it was resolved to gain, and 
yet, unless they moved upon it with the velocity of light 
cavalry, there was little chance but it would be found pre- 
occupied by the Cossacks. They, it is true, had suffered 
greatly in the recent sanguinary action with their enemies; 

35 but the excitement of victory, and the intense sympathy 
with their unexampled triumph, had again swelled their 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 55 

ranks, and would probably act with the force of a vortex 
to draw up their simple countrymen from the Caspian. 
Tlte question, therefore, of preoccupation was reduced to a 
race. The Cossacks were marching upon an oblique line 
not above fifty miles longer than that which led to the same 5 
point from the Kalmuck headquarters before Koulagina ; 
and therefore, without the most furious haste on the part 
of the Kalmucks, there was not a chance for them, bur- 
dened and "trashed " (2) as they were, to anticipate so agile 
a light cavalry as the Cossacks in seizing this important 10 
pass. 

Dreadful were the feelings of the poor women on hearing 
this exposition of the case ; for they easily understood that 
too capital an interest (the summa rerum) was now at stake 
to allow of any regard to minor interests, or what would 15 
be considered such in their present circumstances. The 
dreadful week already passed — their inauguration in misery 
— was yet fresh in their remembrance. The scars of suffer- 
ing were impressed not only upon their memories, but 
upon their very persons and the persons of their children; 20 
and they knew that, where no speed had much chance of 
meeting the cravings of the chieftains, no test would be 
accepted, short of absolute exhaustion, that as much had 
been accomplished as could be accomplished. Weseloff, 
the Russian captive, has recorded the silent wretchedness 25 
with which the women and elder boys assisted in drawing 
the tent ropes. On the 5th of January all had been anima- 
tion and the joyousness of indefinite expectation ; now, on 
the contrary, a brief but bitter experience had taught them 
to take an amended calculation of what it was that lay 30 
before them. 

One whole day and far into the succeeding night had the 
renewed flight continued ; the sufferings had been greater 
than before, for tlie cold had been more intense, and 
many perished out of the living creatures through every 35 

1"* Summa rerum. In Latin, " The most important of things," 



66 FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 

class except only the camels, whose powers of endurance 
seemed equally adapted to cold and heat. The second 
morning, however, brought an alleviation to the distress. 
Snow had begun to fall; and, though not deep at present, 

5 it was easily foreseen that it soon would be so, and that, as 
a halt would in that case become unavoidable, no plan 
could be better than that of staying where they were, 
especially as the same cause would check the advance of 
the Cossacks. Here, then, was the last interval of comfort 

ID which gleamed upon the unhappy nation during their 
whole migration. For ten days the snow continued to fall 
with little intermission. At the end of that time, keen, 
bright, frosty weather succeeded ; the drifting had ceased. 
In three days the smooth expanse became firm enough to 

15 support the treading of the camels, and the flight was 
recommenced. But during the halt much domestic com- 
fort had been enjo^^ed, and, for the last time, universal 
plenty. The cows and oxen had perished in such vast 
numbers on the previous marches that an order was now 

20 issued to turn what remained to account by slaughtering 
the whole, and salting whatever part should be found to 
exceed the immediate consumption. Tliis measure led to a 
scene of general banqueting, and even of festivity, amongst 
all who were not incapacitated for joyous emotions by dis- 

25 tress of mind, by grief for the unhappy experience of the 
few last days, and by anxiety for the too gloomy future. 
Seventy thousand persons of all ages had already perished, 
exclusively of the many thousand allies who had been cut 
down by the Cossack saber; and the losses in reversion 

30 were likely to be many more ; for rumors began now 
to arrive from all quarters, by the mounted couriers whom 
the khan had dispatched to the rear and to each flank as 
w^ell as in adv^ance, that large masses of the imperial troops 
were converging from all parts of Central Asia to the fords 

35 of the Eiver Torgau, as the most convenient point for inter- 
cepting the flying tribes; and it was already well known 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 5 7 

that a powerful division was close in their rear, and was 
retarded only by the numerous artillery which had been 
judged necessary to support their operations. New moti ves 
were thus daily arising for quickening the motions of the 
wretched Kalmucks and for exhausting those who were 5 
previously but too much exliausted. 

It was not until the 2d day of February that the khan's 
advanced guard came in sight of Ouchim, the defile among 
the hills of Moulgaldchares, in Avhich they anticipated so 
bloody an opposition from the Cossacks. A pretty large 10 
body of these light cavalry had, in fact, preoccupied the 
pass by some hours; but the khan having two great 
advantages — namely, a strong body of infantry, who had 
been conveyed by sections of five on about two hundred 
camels, and some pieces of light artillery which he had not 15 
yet been forced to abandon — soon began to make a serious 
impression upon this unsupported detachment; and they 
would probably at any rate have retired ; but, at the very 
moment when they were making some dispositions in that 
view, Zebek-Dorchi appeared upon their rear with a body 20 
of trained riflemen, who had distinguished themselves in 
the war with Turkey. These men had contrived to crawl 
unobserved over the cliffs which skirted the ravine, avail- 
ing themselves of the dry beds of the summer torrents and 
other inequalities of the ground to conceal their movement. 25 
Disorder and trepidation ensued instantly in the Cossack 
files. The khan, who had been waiting with the elite of 
his heavy cavalry, charged furiously upon them. Total 
overthrow followed to tlie Cossacks, and a slaughter such 
as in some measure avenged the recent bloody extermina- 30 
tion of their allies, the ancient ouloss of Feka-Zechorr. 
The slight horses of the Cossacks were unable to support 
the weight of heavy Polish dragoons and a body of trained 

9 Moulgaldchares. The Mugodschar mountains. 

27 Elite of his heavy cavalry. The flower (the choicest part) of his heavy 
cavahy. 



58 FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 

cameleers (that is, cuirassiers mounted on camels). Hardy 
they were, but not strong, nor a match for their antago- 
nists in weight ; and their extraordinary efforts through the 
last few days to gain their present position had greatly 

5 diminished their powers for effecting an escape. Very 
few, in fact, did escape; and the bloody day of Ouchim 
became as memorable among the Cossacks as that which, 
about twenty days before, had signalized the complete 
annihilation of the Feka-Zechorr. (3) 

10 The road was now open to the River Igritch, and as yet 
even far beyond it to the Torgau; but how long this state 
of things would continue was every day more doubtful. 
Certain intelligence was now received that a large Russian 
army, well appointed in every arm, was advancing upon 

15 the Torgau under the command of General Traubenberg. 
This officer was to be joined on his route by ten thousand 
Bashkirs and pretty nearly the same amount of Kirghises — 
both hereditary enemies of the Kalmucks — both exasper- 
ated to a point of madness by the bloody trophies which 

2oOubacha and Momotbacha had, in late years, won from 
such of their compatriots as served under the Sultan. The 
Czarina's yoke these wild nations bore with submissive 
patience, but not the hands by which it had been imposed ; 
and accordingly, catching with eagerness at the present 

25 occasion offered to their vengeance, they sent an assurance 
to the Czarina of their perfect obedience to her commands, 
and at the same time a message significantly declaring in 
what spirit they meant to execute them — viz., " that they 
would not trouble her majesty with prisoners." 

30 Here then arose, as before with the Cossacks, a race for 
the Kalmucks with the regular armies of Russia, and con- 
currently with nations as fi.erce and semihumanized as 
themselves, besides that they were stung into threefold 
activity by the furies of mortified pride and military abase- 

35 ment under the eyes of the Turkish Sultan. The forces, 
and more especially the artillery, of Russia, were far too 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 59 

overwhelming- to permit the thought of a regular opposi- 
tion in pitched battles, even with a less dilapidated state of 
their resources than they could reasonably expect at the 
period of their arrival on the Torgau. In their speed lay 
their only hope — in strength of foot, as before, and not 5 
in strength of arm. Onward, therefore, the Kalmucks 
pressed, marking the lines of their wide-extending march 
over the sad solitudes of the steppes by a never-ending 
chain of corpses. The old and the young, the sick man on 
his couch, the mother with her baby — all were left behind. 10 
Sights such as these, with the many rueful aggravations 
incident to the helpless condition of infancy — of disease 
land of female weakness abandoned to the wolves amidst 
a howling wilderness — continued to track their course 
through a space of full two thousand miles; for so much at 15 
the least it was likely to prove, including the circuits to 
which they were often compelled by rivers or hostile tribes, 
from the point of starting on the Wolga until they could 
reach their destined halting ground on the east bank of the 
Torgau. For the first seven weeks of this march their 20 
sufferings had been imbittered by the excessive severity of 
the cold; and every night — so long as wood was to be had 
for fires, either from the lading of the camels, or from the 
desperate sacrifice of their baggage wagons, or (as occa- 
sionally happened) from the forests which skirted the 25 
banks of the many rivers which crossed their path — no 
spectacle was more frequent than that of a circle, composed 
of men, women, and children, gathered by hundreds round 
a central fire, all dead and stiff at the return of morning 
light. Myriads were left behind from pure exhaustion, of 30 
whom none had a chance, under the combined evils which 
beset them, of surviving through the next twenty-four 
hours. ' Frost, however, and snow at length ceased to 
persecute; the vast extent of the march at length brought 
them into more genial latitudes; and the unusual duration 35 
of the march was gradually bringing them into the more 



CO FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 

genial seasons of the year. Two thousand miles had at 
least been traversed; February, March, April were gone; 
the balmy month of May had opened; vernal sights and 
sounds came from every side to comfort the heart- weary 

5 travelers; and at last, in the latter end of May, they crossed 
the Torgau, and took up a position where they hoped to 
find liberty to repose themselves for many weeks in com- 
fort as well as in security, and to draw such supplies from 
the fertile neighborhood as might restore their shattered 

10 forces to a condition for executing, with less of wreck and 
ruin, the large remainder of the journey. 

Yes; it was true that two thousand miles of wandering 
had been completed, but in a period of nearly five months, 
and with the terrific sacrifice of at least two hundred and 

15 fifty thousand souls, to say nothing of herds and flocks 
past all reckoning. These had all perished— ox, cow, 
horse, mule, ass, sheep, or goat; not one survived— only 
the camels. These arid and adust creatures, looking like 
the mummies of some antediluvian animals, without the 

20 affections or sensibilities of flesh and blood— these only 
still erected their speaking eyes to the eastern heavens, and 
had to all appearance come out from this long tempest of 
trial unscathed and unharmed. The khan, knowing how 
much he was individually answerable for the misery which 

25 had been sustained, nmst have w^ept tears even more bitter 
than those of Xerxes when he threw his eyes over the 
myriads whom he had assembled : for the tears of Xerxes 
were unmingled with compunction. Whatever amends 
were in his power he resolved to make by sacrifices, to the 

30 general good, of all personal regards; and accordingly, 
even at this point of their advance, he once more deliber- 
ately brpught under review the whole question of the 
revolt. The question was formally debated before the 

18 Adust. From the Latin ad-{-urere, to burn ; hence burned up, scorched. 
26 Xerxes wept at the thouglit that of all the great host spread out under his 
eyes not one would be alive in a hundred years. 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 61 

council, whetlier, even at this point, they should untread 
their steps, and, throwing themselves upon the Czarina's 
mercy, return to their old allegiance. In that case, 
Oubacha professed himself willing to become the scapegoat 
for the general transgression. This, he argued, was no 5 
fantastic sclieme, but even easy of accomplishment; for the 
unlimited and sacred power of the khan, so well know^i to 
the Empress, made it absolutely iniquitous to attribute any 
separate responsibility to the people. Upon the khan 
rested the guilt— upon tlie klian would descend the 10 
imperial vengeance. This proposal was applauded for its 
generosity, but was energetically opposed by Zebek- 
Dorclii. Were they to lose the whole journey of two thou- 
sand miles? Was their misery to perish without fruit? 
True it was that they had yet reached only the halfway 15 
house; but, in that respect, the motives were evenly 
balanced for retreat or for advance. Either way they 
would have pretty nearly the same distance to traverse, but 
with this difference — that, forwards, their route lay through 
lands comparatively fertile ; backwards, through a blasted 20 
wilderness, rich only in memorials of their sorrow, and 
hideous to Kalmuck eyes by the trophies of their calamity. 
Besides, though the Empress might accept an excuse for the 
past, would she the less forbear to suspect for the future? 
The Czarina's pardon they might obtain ; but could they 25 
ever hope to recover her confidence^ Doubtless there 
would now be a standing presumption against them, an 
immortal ground of jealousy; and a jealous government 
would be but another name for a harsh one. Finally, 
whatever motives there ever had been for the revolt surely 30 
remained unimpaired by anything that had occurred. In 
reality, the revolt was, after all, no revolt, but (strictly 
speaking) a return to their old allegiance; since, not above 
one hundred and fifty years ago (viz., in the year 1616), 
their ancestors had revolted from the Emperor of China. 35 
They had now tried both governments; and for them 



62 FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 

China was the land of promise, and Russia the house of 
bondage. 

Spite, however, of all that Zebek could say or do, the 
yearning of the people was strongly in behalf of the khan's 

5 proposal; the pardon of their prince, they persuaded them- 
selves, would be readily conceded by the Empress; and 
there is little doubt that they would at this time have 
thrown themselves gladly upon the imperial mercy; when 
suddenly all was defeated by the arrival of two envoys 

10 from Traubenberg. This general had reached the fortress 
of Orsk, after a very painful march, on the 12tli of April ; 
thence he set forward toward Oriembourg, which he 
reached upon the 1st of June, having been joined on his 
route at various times through the month of May by the 

15 Kirghises and a corps of ten thousand Bashkirs. From 
Oriembourg he sent forward his official offers to the khan, 
which were harsh and peremptorj^, holding out no specific 
stipulations as to pardon or impunity, and exacting uncon- 
ditional submission as the preliminary price of any cessation 

20 from military operations. The personal character of Trau- 
benberg, which was anything but energetic, and the con- 
dition of his army, disorganized in a great measure by the 
length and severity of the march, made it probable that, 
with a little time for negotiation, a more conciliatory tone 

25 would have been assumed. But, unhappily for all parties, 
sinister events occurred in the meantime such as effectually 
put an end to every hope of the kind. 

The two envoys sent forward by Traubenberg had 
reported to this officer that a distance of only ten days' 

30 march lay between his own headquarters and those of the 
khan. Upon this fact transpiring, the Kirghises, by their 
prince Nourali, and the Bashkirs, entreated the Russian 
general to advance without delay. Once having placed his 
cannon in position, so as to command the Kalmuck camp, 

35 the fate of the rebel khan and his people would be in his 
own hands, and they would themselves form his advanced 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 63 

guard. Traubenberg, however— lo/ii/ has not been certainly 
explained — refused to march ; grounding his refusal upon 
the condition of his army and their absolute need of 
refreshment. Long and fierce was the altercation ; but at 
length, seeing no chance of prevailing, and dreading above 5 
all other events the escape of their detested enemy, the 
ferocious Bashkirs went off in a body by forced marches. 
In six days they reached the Torgau, crossed by swimming 
their horses, and fell upon the Kalmucks, who were dis- 
persed for many a league in search of food or provender for 10 
their camels. The first day's action was one vast succession 
of independent skirmishes, diffused over a field of thirty to 
forty miles in extent; one party often breaking up into 
three or four, and again (according to the accidents of 
ground) three or four blending into one; flight and pursuit, 15 
rescue and total overthrow, going on simultaneously, under 
all varieties of form, in all quarters of the plain. The 
Bashkirs had found themselves obliged, by the scattered 
state of the Kalmucks, to split up into innumerable sec- 
tions; and thus, for some hours, it had been impossible for 20 
the most practiced eye to collect the general tendency of the 
day's fortune. Both the khan and Zebek-Dorchi were at 
one moment made prisoners, and more than once in immi- 
nent danger of being cut down ; but at length Zebek suc- 
ceeded in rallying a strong column of infantry, which, 25 
with the support of the camel corps on each flank, com- 
pelled the Bashkirs to retreat. Clouds, however, of these 
wild cavalry continued to arrive through the next two days 
and nights, followed or accompanied by the Kirghises. 
These being viewed as the advanced parties of Trauben- 30 
berg's army, the Kalmuck chieftains saw no hope of safety 
but in flight; and in this way it happened that a retreat, 
which had so recently been brought to a pause, was 
resumed at the very moment when the unhappy fugitives 
were anticipating a deep repose, without further molesta- 35 
tion, the whole summer through. 



64 FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 

It seemed as though every variety of wretchedness were 
predestined to the Kalmucks, and as if their sufferings 
were incomplete unless they were rounded and matured 
by all that the most dreadful agencies of summer's heat 

5 could superadd to those of frost and winter. To this seqnel 
of their story we shall immediately revert, after first 
noticing a little romantic episode which occurred at this 
point between Oubacha and his unprincipled cousin Zebek- 
Dorchi. 

lo There was, at the time of the Kalmuck flight from the 
Wolga, a Russian gentleman of some rank at the court of 
the khan, whom, for political reasons, it was thought neces- 
sary to carry along with them as a captive. For some 
weeks his confinement had been very strict, and in one or 

15 two instances cruel; but, as the increasing distance was 
continually diminishing the chances of escape, and perhaps, 
also, as the misery of the guards gradually withdrew their 
attention from all minor interests to tlieir own personal 
sufferings, the vigilance of the custody grew more and 

20 more relaxed ; until at length, upon a petition to the khan, 
Mr. Weseloff was formally restored to liberty; and it was 
understood that he might use his liberty in whatever way 
he chose; even for returning to Russia, if that should be 
his wish. Accordingly, he was making active preparations 

25 for his journey to St. Petersburg, when it occurred to 
Zebek-Dorchi that not improbably", in some of the battles 
which were then anticipated with Traubenberg, it might 
happen to them to lose some prisoner of rank, in which 
case the Russian Weseloff would be a pledge in their hands 

30 for negotiating an exchange. Upon this plea, to his own 
severe affliction, the Russian was detained until the further 
pleasure of the khan. The khan's name, indeed, was used 
through the whole affair, but, as it seemed, with so little 
concurrence on his part, that, when Weseloff in a private 

35 audience humbly remonstrated upon the injustice done 
him and the cruelty of thus sporting with his feelings by 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 65 

setting him at liberty, and, as it were, tempting him into 
dreams of home and restored happiness only for the purpose 
of blighting them, the good-natured prince disclaimed all 
participation in the affair, and went so far in proving his 
sincerity as even to give him permission to effect his 5 
escape ; and, as a ready means of commencing it without 
raising suspicion, the khan mentioned to Mr. Weseloff 
tliat he had just then received a message from the hetman 
of the Bashkirs, soliciting a private interview on the banks 
of the Torgau at a spot pointed out. Tliat interview was 10 
arranged for the coming night; and Mr. 'Weseloff might 
go in the khan's suite, which on either side was not to 
exceed three persons. Weseloff was a prudent man, 
acquainted with the world, and he read treachery in the 
very outline of this scheme, as stated by the khan — 15 
treachery against the khan's person. He mused a little, 
and then communicated so much of his suspicions to the 
khan as might put him on his guard; but, upon further 
consideration, he begged leave to decline the honor of 
accompanying the khan. The fact was that three Kalmucks, 20 
who had strong motives for returning to their countr^-men 
on the west bank of the Wolga, guessing the intentions of 
Weseloff, had offered to join him in his escape. These 
men the khan would probably find himself obliged to 
countenance in their project, so that it became a point of 25 
honor with Weseloff to conceal their intentions, and there- 
fore to accomplish the evasion from the camp (of which 
the first steps only would be hazardous) without risking 
the notice of the khan. 

The district in which they were now encamped abounded 30 
thi^ugh many hundred miles with wild horses of a docile 
and beautiful breed. Each of the four fugitives had caught 
from seven to ten of these spirited creatures in the course 
of the last few days. This raised no suspicion, for the rest 
of the Kalmucks had been making the same sort of pro- 35 

8 Hetman. The chief. 



66 FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 

vision against the coming toils of their remaining route to 
China. These horses were secured by halters, and hidden 
about dusk in the thickets which lined the margin of the 
river. To these thickets, about ten at night, the four fugi- 

5 tives repaired. They took a circuitous path, which drew 
them as little as possible within danger of challenge from 
any of the outposts or of the patrols which had been 
established on the quarters where the Bashkirs lay, and in 
three-quarters of an hour they reached the rendezvous. 

ID The moon had now risen, the horses were unfastened; and 
they were in the act of mounting, when the deep silence 
of the woods was disturbed by a violent uproar and the 
clashing of arms. Weseloff fancied that he heard the 
voice of the khan shouting for assistance. He remembered 

15 the communication made by that prince in the morning; 
and, requesting his companions to support him, he rode ofiP 
in the direction of the sound. A \qyj short distance 
brought him to an open glade in the wood, where he 
beheld four men contending with a party of at least nine 

20 or ten. Two of the four were dismounted at the very 
instant of Weseloff's arrival. One of these he recognized 
almost certainly as the khan, who was fighting hand to 
hand, but at great disadvantage, with two of the adverse 
horsemen. Seeing that no time was to be lost, Weseloff 

25 fired and brought down one of the two. His companions 
discharged their carabines at the same moment; and then 
all rushed simultaneously into the little open area. The 
thundering sound of about thirty horses, all rushing at 
once into a narrow space, gave the impression that a whole 

30 troop of cavalry was coming down upon the assailants, 
who accordingly wheeled about and fled with one impulse. 
Weseloff advanced to the dismounted cavalier, who, as he 
expected, proved to be the khan. The man whom Wesel- 
off had shot was lying dead; and both were shocked, 

35 though Weseloff at least was not surprised, on stooping 
down and scrutinizing his features, to recognize a well- 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE tJ7 

known confidential servant of Zebek-Dorchi. Nothing 
was said by either party. The khan rode off, escorted by 
Weseloff and his companions; and for some time a dead 
silence prevailed. The situation of Weseloff was delicate 
and critical. To leave the khan at this point was probably 5 
to cancel their recent services; for he might be again 
crossed on his path, and again attacked, by the very party 
from whom he had just been delivered. Yet, on the other 
hand, to return to the camp was to endanger the chances 
of accomplishing the escape. The khan, also, was appar- 10 
ently revolving all this in his mind; for at length he 
broke silence and said, "I comprehend your situation; 
and, under other circumstances, I might feel it my duty to 
detain your companions, but it would ill become me to do 
so after the important service yo\x have just rendered me. 15 
Let us turn a little to the left. There, where you see the 
watchfire, is an outpost. Attend me so far. I am then 
safe. You may turn and pursue your enterprise; for the 
circumstances under which you will appear as my escort 
are sufficient to shield you from all suspicion for the pres- 20 
ent. I regret having no better means at my disposal for 
testifying my gratitude. But, tell me, before we part, was 
it accident only which led you to my rescue? or had you 
acquired any knowledge of the plot by which I was decoyed 
into this snare?" Weseloff answered very candidly that 25 
mere accident had brought him to the spot at which he 
heard the uproar; but that, having heard it, and connect- 
ing it with the khan's communication of the morning, he 
had then designedly gone after the sound in a way which 
he certainly should not have done, at so critical a moment, 30 
unless in the expectation of finding the khan assaulted by 
assassins. A few minutes after they reached the outpost 
at which it became safe to leave the Tartar chieftain ; and 
immediately the four fugitives commenced a flight which is, 
perhaps, without a parallel in the annals of traveling. 35 
Each of them led six or seven horses besides the one he 



C8 FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 

rode; and by shifting from one to the other (like the 
ancient desultors of the Roman circus), so as never to 
burden the same horse for more tlian half an hour at a 
time, they continued to advance at the rate of two hundred 

5 miles in the twenty-four hours for three days consecutively. 
After that time, considering themselves beyond pursuit, 
they proceeded less rapidly, though still with a velocity 
which staggered the belief of WeselofP's friends in after 
years. He was, however, a man of high principle, and 

10 always adhered firmly to the details of his printed report. 
One of the circumstances there stated is that they con- 
tinued to pursue the route by \vhich the Kalmucks had 
fled, never for an instant finding any difficulty in tracing 
it by the skeletons and other memorials of their calamities. 

15 In particular, he mentions vast heaps of money as part of 
the valuable property which it had been necessary to 
sacrifice. These heaps were found lying still untouched in 
the deserts. From these WeselofiP and his companions 
took as much as they could conveniently carry; and this 

20 it was, with* the price of their beautiful horses, whicii they 
afterward sold at one of the Russian military settlements 
for about fifteen pounds apiece, which eventually enabled 
them to pursue their journey in Russia. This journey, as 
regarded Weseloff in particular, was closed by a tragical 

25 catastroplie. He was at that time young, and the only 
child of a doting mother. Her affliction under the violent 
abduction of her son had been excessive, and probably had 
undermined her constitution. Still she had supported it. 
Weseloff, giving way to the natural impulses of his filial 

30 affection, had imprudently posted through Russia to his 
mother's house without warning of his approach. He 

2 Desultors. While the ability to ride two or more horses at the same time 
was in general merely a feat of horsemanship among the Romans, in other 
nations the practice was applied to the nses of war, and Livy mentions a troop 
of Numidian cavalry in which each soldier was supplied with two horses, and 
in the heat of battle and in heavy armor would leap from the wearied to the 
fresh horse with the greatest dexterity. 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 69 

■ 

' rushed precipitately into her presence ; and she, who had 
stood the shocks of sorrow, was found unequal to the 
shock of joy too sudden and too acute. She died upon the 
spot. 

We now revert to the final scenes of the Kalmuck flight. 5 
These it would be useless to pursue circumstantially 
through the whole two thousand miles of suffering which 
remained; for the character of that suffering was even 
more monotonous than on the former half of the flight, 
but also more severe. Its main elements were excessive 10 
heat, with the accompaniments of famine 'and thirst, but 
aggravated at every step by the murderous attacks of their 
cruel enemies, the Bashkirs and the Kirghises. 

These people, "more fell than anguish, hunger, or the 
sea," stuck to the unhappy Kalmucks like a swarm of 15 
enraged hornets ; and very often, wliile they were attacking 
them in the rear, their advanced parties and flanks were 
attacked with almost equal fury by the people of the 
country which they were traversing; and with good rea- 
son, since the law of self-preservation had now obliged the 20 
fugitive Tartars to plunder provisions and to forage wher- 
ever they passed. In this respect their condition was a 
constant oscillation of wretchedness ; for sometimes, pressed 
by grinding famine, they took a circuit of perhaps a hun- 
dred miles, in order to strike into a land rich in the com- 25 
forts of life. But in such a land they were sure to find a 
crowded population, of which every arm was raised in 
unrelenting hostility, with all the advantages of local 
knowledge, and with constant preoccupation of all the 
defensible positions, mountain passes, or bridges. Some- 30 
times, again, wearied out with this mode of suffering, they 
took a circuit of perhaps a hundred miles, in order to strike 
into a land with few or no inhabitants ; but in such a land 
they were sure to meet absolute starvation. Then, again, 
whether with or without this plague of starvation, whether 35 

14 " More fell," etc. " Othello," V. 2. 



70 FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 

with or without this plague of hostility in front, what- 
ever might be the "fierce varieties" of their miserj^ in 
this respect, no rest ever came to their unhappy rear; post 
equitem sedet atra cura ; it was a torment like the undy- 

5 ing worm of conscience ; and, upon the whole, it presented 
a spectacle altogether unprecedented in the history of 
mankind. Private and personal malignity is not unfre- 
quently immortal; but rare indeed is it to find the same 
pertinacity of malice in a nation. And what imbittered 

lo the interest was that the malice was reciprocal. Thus far 
the parties met upon equal terms ; but that equality only 
sharpened the sense of their dire inequality as to other cir- 
cumstances. The Bashkirs were ready to fight "from 
morn till dewy eve." The Kalmucks, on the contrary, 

15 were always obliged to run; was it from their enemies as 
creatures whom they feared? No ; but toicard their 
friends— toward that final haven of China — as what was 
hourly implored by their wives and the tears of their chil- 
dren. But, though they fled unwillingly, too often they 

20 fled in vain — being unwillingly recalled. There lay the 
torment. Every day the Bashkirs fell upon them; every 
day the same unprofitable battle was renewed. As a mat- 
ter of course, the Kalmucks recalled part of their advanced 
guard to fight them. Every day the battle raged for hours, 

25 and uniformly with the same result; for, no sooner did the 
Bashkirs find themselves too heavily pressed, and that the 
Kalmuck march had been retarded by some hours, than 
they retired into the boundless deserts, where all pursuit 
was hopeless. But if the Kalmucks resolved to press for- 

30 wards, regardless of their enemies — in that case their attacks 
became so fierce and overwhelming that the general safety 
seemed likely to be brought into question; nor could any 
efl^ectual remedy be applied to the case, even for each sep- 

3 " Post equitem," etc. A familiar quotation from Horace's Third Ode: 
" Behind the horseman sits black care." 
>3 " From morn to dewy eve." " Paradise Lost," I. 743. 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE /I 

arate day, except by a most embarrassing halt and by 
countermarclies that, to men in their circumstances, were 
almost worse than death. It will not be surprising that 
the irritation of such a systematic persecution, superadded 
to a previous and hereditary hatred, and accompanied by 5 
the stinging consciousness of utter impotence as regarded 
all effectual vengeance, should gradually have inflamed 
the Kalmuck animosity into the wildest expression of 
downright madness and frenzy. Indeed, long before the 
frontiers of China were approached, the hostility of both 10 
sides had assumed the appearance much mere of a warfare 
amongst wild beasts than amongst creatures acknowledging 
the restraints of reason or the claims of a common nature. 
The spectacle became too atrocious ; it was that of a host of 
lunatics pursued by a host of fiends. 1 5 

On a fine morning in early autumn of the year 1771, 
Kien Long, the Emperor of China, was pursuing his 
amusements in a wild frontier district lying on the outside 
of the Great Wall. For many hundred square leagues the 20 
country was desolate of inhabitants, but rich in woods of 
ancient growth and overrun with game of every descrip- 
tion. In a central spot of this solitary region the Emperor 
had built a gorgeous hunting lodge, to which he resorted 
annually for recreation and relief from the care's of gov- 25 
ernment. Led onwards in pursuit of game, he had rambled 
to a distance of two hundred miles or more from this lodge, 
followed at a little distance by a sufficient military escort, 
and every night pitching his tent in a different situation, 
until at length he had arrived on the verj'- margin of the 30 
vast central deserts of Asia. (4) Here he was standing, by 
accident, at an opening of his pavilion, enjoying the morn- 
ing sunshine, when suddenly to the westward there arose a 
vast, cloudy vapor, which by degrees expanded, mounted, 
and seemed to be slowly diffusing itself over the whole face 35 
of the heavens. By and by this vast sheet of mist began to 



72 FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 

thicken toward the horizon and to roll forward in billowy 
volumes. The Emperor's suite assembled from all quar- 
ters; the silver trumpets were sounded in the rear; and 
from all the glades and forest avenues began to trot for- 

5 wards towards the pavilion the yagers — half cavalry, half 
huntsmen — who composed the imperial escort. Conjecture 
was on the stretch to divine the cause of this phenomenon ; 
and the interest continually increased in proportion as 
simple curiosity gradually deepened into the anxiety of 

10 uncertain danger. At first it had been imagined that some 
vast troops of deer or other wild animals of the cliase had 
been disturbed in their forest haunts by the Emperor's 
movements, or possibly by wild beasts prowling for prey, 
and might be fetching a compass by way of re-entering the 

15 forest grounds at some remoter points, secure from molesta- 
tion. But this conjecture was dissipated by the slow 
increase of the cloud and the steadiness of its motion. In 
the course of two hours the vast phenomenon had advanced 
to a point which was judged to be within five miles of the 

20 spectators ; though all calculations of distance were diffi- 
cult, and often fallacious, when applied to the endless 
expanses of the Tartar deserts. Through the next hour, 
during which the gentle morning breeze had a little fresh- 
ened, the dusty vapor had developed itself far and wide 

25 into the appearance of huge aerial draperies, hanging in 
mighty volumes from the sky to the earth; and at particu- 
lar points, where the eddies of the breeze acted upon the 
pendulous skirts of these aerial curtains, rents were per- 
ceived, sometimes taking the form of regular arches, por- 

3otals, and windows, through which began dimly to gleam 
the heads of camels "indorsed " (5) with human beings, and 
at intervals the moving of men and horses in tumultuous 
array, and then through other openings, or vistas, at far- 
distant points, the flashing of polished arms. But some- 

'■> Yagers. Derived from the German '' Jdger,"' a liuiitsman. The light 
infantry of the Austrian army to-day are called >jfge?s. 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE V3 

times, as the wind slackened or died away, all those 
openings, of whatever form, in the cloudy pall, would 
slowly close, and for a time the whole pageant was shut 
up from view; although the growing din, the clamors, the 
shrieks and groans ascending from infuriated myriads, 5 
reported, in a language not to be misunderstood, what was 
going on behind the cloudy screen. 

It "was, in fact, the Kalmuck host, now in the last ex- 
tremities' of their exhaustion, and very fast approaching to 
that final stage of privation and intense misery beyond 10 
which few or none could have lived, but also, happily for 
themselves, fast approaching (in a literal sense) that final 
stage of their long pilgrimage at which they would meet 
hospitality on a scale of royal magnificence and full pro- 
tection from their enemies. These enemies, however, as 15 
yet, still were hanging on their rear as fiercely as ever, 
though this day was destined to be the last of their hideous 
perse'cution. The khan had, in fact, sent forward couriers 
with all the requisite statements and petitions, addressed to 
the Emperor of China. These had been duly received, and 20 
preparations made in consequence to welcome the Kal- 
mucks with the most paternal benevolence. But as these 
couriers had been dispatched from the Torgau at the 
moment of arrival thither, and before the advance of Trau- 
benberg had made it necessary for the khan to order a 25 
hasty i^newal of the flight, the Emperor had not looked for 
their arrival on his frontiers until full three months after 
the present time. The khan had, indeed, expressly notified 
his intention to pass the summer heats on the banks of the 
Torgau, and to recommence his retreat about the beginning 30 
of September. The subsequent change of plan being un- 
known to Kien Long, left him for some time in doubt as to 
the true interpretation to be put upon this mighty appari- 
tion in the desert; but at length the savage clamors of 
hostile fury and the clangor of weapons unveiled to the 35 
Emperor the true nature of those unexpected calamities 



74 FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 

which liad so prematurely precipitated the Kalmuck 
measure. 

Apprehending the real state of affairs, the Emperor 
instantly perceived that the first act of his fatherly care for 

5 these erring children (as he esteemed them), now returning 
to their ancient obedience, must be to deliver them from 
their pursuers. And this was less difficult than might 
have been supposed. Not many miles in the rear was a 
body of well-appointed cavalry, with a strong detachment 

10 of artillery, who always attended the Emperor's motions. 
These were hastily summoned. Meantime it occurred to 
the train of courtiers that some danger might arise to the 
Emperor's person from the proximity of a lawless enemy, 
and accordingly he was induced to retire a little to the rear. 

15 It soon appeared, however, to those who w^atched the 
vapory shroud in the desert, that its motion was not such 
as would argue the direction of the march to be exactly 
upon the pavilion, but rather in a diagonal line, making an 
angle of full forty-five degrees with that line in which the 

20 imperial cortege had been standing, and therefore with a 
distance continually increasing. Those who knew the 
country judged that the Kalmucks were making for a large 
fresh-water lake about seven or eight miles distant. They 
were right; and to that point the imperial cavalry was 

25 ordered up; and it was precisely in that spot, and about 
three hours after, and at noonday, on the 8th of September, 
that the great exodus of the Kalmuck Tartars was brought 
to a final close, and with a scene of such memorable and 
hellish fury as formed an appropriate winding up to an 

30 expedition in all its parts and details so awfully disastrous. 
Tlie Emperor was not personally present, or at least he saw 
whatever he did see from too great a distance to discrimin- 
ate its individual features; but he records in his written 
memorial the report made to him of this scene by some of 

35 his own oflBcers. 

The Lake of Tengis, near the frightful Desert of Kobi, 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE V5 

lay in a hollow amongst hills of a moderate height, ranging 
generally from two to three thousand feet high. About 
eleven o'clock in the forenoon the Chinese cavalry reached 
the summit of a road which led through a cradle-like dip 
in the mountains right down upon the margin of the lake. 5 
From this pass, elevated about two thousand feet above 
the level of the water, they continued to descend, by a very 
winding and difficult road, for an hour and a half; and 
during the whole of this descent they were compelled to be 
inactive spectators of the fiendish spectacle below. The 10 
Kalmucks, reduced by this time from about six hundred 
thousand souls to two hundred thousand, and after endur- 
ing for two months and a half the miseries we have pre- 
viously described— outrageous heat, famine, and the 
destroying scimiter of the Kirghises and the Bashkirs— had 15 
for the last ten days been traversing a hideous desert, 
where no vestiges were seen of vegetation and no drop of 
water could be found. Camels and men were already so 
overladen that it was a mere impossibility that they should 
carry a tolerable sufficiency for the passage of this frightful 20 
wilderness. On the eighth day, the wretched daily allow- 
ance, which had been continually diminishing, failed 
entirely; and thus, for two days of insupportable fatigue, 
the horrors of thirst had been carried to the fiercest ex- 
tremity. Upon this last morning, at the sight of the hills 25 
and the forest scenery, which announced to those who 
acted as guides the neighborhood of the Lake of Tengis, all 
the people rushed along with maddening eagerness to the 
anticipated solace. The day grew hotter and hotter, the 
people more and more exhausted ; and gradually, in 30 
the general rush forward to the lake, all discipline and 
command were lost— all attempts to preserve a rear guard 
were neglected. The wild Bashkirs rode on amongst the 
encumbered people and slaughtered them by wholesale, 
and almost without resistance ; screams and tumultuous 35 
shouts proclaimed the progress of the massacre ; but none 



VG FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 

heeded, none halted — all alike, pauper or noble, continued 
to rush on with maniacal haste to the waters — all with 
faces blackened by the heat preying upon the liver and 
with tongue drooping from the mouth. The cruel Bashkir 

5 was aifected by the same misery, and manifested the same 
symptoms of his misery, as the wretched Kalmuck. The 
murderer was oftentimes in the same frantic misery as his 
murdered victim. Many, indeed (an ordinary etfect of 
thirst), in both nations, had become lunatic; and in this 

restate, whilst mere multitude and condensation of bodies 
alone opposed any check to the destroying scimiter and the 
trampling hoof, the lake was reached; and to that the 
whole vast body of enemies I'ushed, and together continued 
to rush, forgetful of all things at that moment but of one 

15 almighty instinct. This absorption of the thoughts in one 
maddening appetite lasted for a single minute; but in the 
next arose the final scene of parting vengeance. Far and 
wide the waters of the solitary lake were instantly dyed 
red with blood and gore. Here rode a party of savage 

20 Bashkirs, hewing off heads as fast as the swaths fall before 
the mower's scythe; there stood unarmed Kalmucks in a 
death grapple with their detested foes, both up to the 
middle in water, and oftentimes both sinking together 
below the surface, from weakness or from struggles, and 

25 perishing in each other's arms. Did the Bashkirs at any 
point collect into a cluster for the sake of giving impetus to 
the assault, thither were the camels driven in fiercely by 
those who rode them, generally women or boys; and even 
these quiet creatures were forced into a share in this carni- 

30 val of murder by trampling down as many as they could 
strike prostrate with the lash of their fore legs. Everj^ 
moment the water grew more polluted; and yet every 
moment fresh myriads came up to the lake and rushed in, 
not able to resist their frantic thirst, and swallowing large 

35 draughts of water, visibly contamintated with the blood of 
their slaughtered compatriots. Wheresoever the lake was 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE '?V 

shallow enough to allow of men raising their heads above 
the water, there, for scores of acres, were to be seen all 
forms of ghastly fear, of agonizing struggle, of spasms, of 
convulsions, of mortal conflict — death, and the fear of 
death — revenge, and the lunacy of revenge — hatred, and 5 
the frenzy of hatred ; until the neutral spectators, of whom 
there were not a few, now descending the eastern side of 
the lake, at length averted their eyes in horror. This 
horror, which seemed incapable of further addition, was, 
however, increased by an unexpected incident. The Bash- 10 
kirs, beginning to perceive here and there the approach of 
the Chinese cavalry, felt it prudent— wheresoever they 
were sufficiently at leisure from the passions of the murder- 
ous scene— to gather into bodies. This was noticed by the 
governor of a small Cliinese fort built upon an eminence 15 
above the lake; and immediately he threw in a broadside, 
which spread havoc among the Bashkir tribe. As often as 
the Bashkirs collected into globes and turms as their only 
means of meeting the long line of descending Chinese 
cavalry, so often did the Chinese governor of the fort pour 20 
in his exterminating broadside; until at length the lake, at 
the lower end, became one vast seething caldron of human 
bloodshed and carnage. The Chinese cavalry had reached 
the foot of the hills; the Bashkirs, attentive to their move- 
ments, had formed; skirmishes had been fought; and, with 25 
a quick sense that the contest was henceforward rapidly 
becoming hopeless, the Bashkirs and Kirghises began to 
retire. The pursuit was not as vigorous as the Kalmuck 
hatred would have desired ; but, at the same time, the very 
gloomiest hatred could not but find, in their own dreadful 30 
experience of the Asiatic deserts, and in the certainty that 

16 Globes and turms. The first is from the Latin globus, a ball, a body of 
troops drawn up in a circle. Of. Milton's 

"Him round 
A globe of fiery seraphim enclosed." 
A turm is a troop or company, and is derived from the Latin turma. It is 
also used by Milton. 



7S ' FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 

these wretched Bashkirs had to repeat that same experience 
a second time, for thousands of miles, as the price exacted 
by aretributary Providence for their vindictive cruelty — not 
the very gloomiest of the Kalmucks, or the least reflecting-, 
5 but found in all this a retaliatory chastisement more com- 
plete and absolute than any which their swords and lances 
could have obtained or human vengeance could have devised. 

Here ends the tale of the Kalmuck wanderings in the 
desert; for any subsequent marches which awaited them 

10 were neither long nor painful. Every possible alleviation 
and refreshment for their exiiausted bodies had been 
already provided by Kien Long with the most princely 
munificence; and lands of great fertility were immediately 
assigned to them in ample extent along the River Ily, not 

15 very far from the point at which they had first emerged 
from the wilderness of Kobi. But the beneficent attention 
of the Chinese Emperor may be best stated in his own 
words, as translated into French by one of the Jesuit 
missionaries* "La nation des Torgotes (savoir les Kal- 

20 miiqiies) arriva a Ily, toute delabree, n'ayant ni de quoi 
vivre, ni de quoi se vetir. Je Tavais prevu; et j'avais 
ordonne de faire en tout genre les provisions necessaires 
pour pou voir les secourir promptement; c'est ce qui a ete 



19 "La nation des Torgotes," etc. " The nation of tlie Tourgouths (that 
is, the Kalmucks) arrived at the Ily utterly shattered, and with notliing on 
which to live or with which to clothe themselves. I had foreseen that this 
would be the case, and had ordered all sorts of supplies to be made ready, so as 
to render them prompt assistance ; which had been done. A division of lands 
was made, and enough assigned to each family for its support, either by farm- 
ing or by the raising of cattle. There was given to each individual material for 
clothing, enough grain to keep him a year, household utensils and other neces- 
«arles ; and, besides this, several ounces of silver, to provide such things as had 
been forgotten. Special places rich in pasturage were marked out for them, 
and cattle, sheep, etc., were given them, so that they might in the future labor 
for their own support and comfort." Professor Masson says of the above : 
" This is a note of Kien Long subjoined to his main narrative ; and DeQuincey. 
I find, took the above transcript of it from the French translation of Berg- 
manu's book."' 






FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 79 



execute. On a fait la division des terres ; et on a assign^ a 
cliaque famille une portion sufiisante pour pouvoir servir 
a son entretien, soit en la cultivant, soit en y nourissant 
des bestiaux. On a donne a chaque particulier des etoffes 
pour riiabiller, des grains pour se nourrir pendant Tespace 5 
d'une annee, des ustensiles pour le menage et d'autres 
clioses necessaries: et outre cela plusieurs onces d'argent, 
pour se pourvoir de ce qu'on aurait pu oublier. On a 
designe des lieux particuliers, fertiles en paturages; et on 
leur a donne des boeufs, raoutons, etc., pour quUls pussent 10 
dans la suite travailler par eux-memes a leur entretien 
et a leur bienetre. ' 

These are the words of the Emperor himself, speaking in 
his own person of his own paternal cares; but another 
Chinese, treating the same subject, records the munificence 15 
of this prince in terms which proclaim still more forcibly 
the disinterested generosity which prompted, and the 
delicate considerateness wliich conducted, this extensive 
bounty. He has been speaking of the Kalmucks, and he 
goes on thus: "Lorsqu'ils arriverent sur nos fronti^res, 20 
(au nombre de plusieurs centaines de mille,) quoique la 
fatigue extreme, la faim, la soif, et toutes les autres 
incommodites inseparables d'une tr^s-longue et tres-penible 

20 "Lorsqu'ils arriverent," etc. " Wlien they arrived on our frontiers 
(to the number of some hundreds of thousands, although nearly as many more 
had perished by the extreme fatigue, the hunger, the thirst, and all the other 
hardships inseparable from a very long and very toilsome march) they were 
reduced to the last misery, they were in want of everything. The Emperor 
supplied them with everything. He caused habitations to be prepared for them 
suitable for their manner of living ; he caused food and clothing to be distrib- 
uted among them; he had cattle and sheep given them, and implements to put 
them in a condition for forming herds and cultivating the earth ; and all this 
at his own proper charges, which mounted to immense sums, without counting 
the money which he gave to each head of a family to provide for the subsist- 
ence of his wife and children. "—This is from a eulogistic abstract of Kien 
Long's own narrative by one of his Chinese ministers, named Yu-min-tchoung, 
a translation of which was sent to Paris by the Jesuit missionary, P. Amiot, 
together with the translation of the imperial narrative itself. The transcript is 
again by the French translator of Bergmann, and is again rather inaccurate. — 
Masso7i. 



}J\ 



80 FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 



route en pussent fait perir presque autant, ils 6taient reduits 
a la derniere mis^re; ils manquaient de tout. II" (viz. 
Tempereur, Kien Long-) "leur fit preparer des logemeiis 
coiiformes a leur mani^re de vivre; il leur fit distribuer des 

5 alimens et des habits; il leur fit donner des boeufs, des 
moutons, et des ustensiles, pour les mettre en etat de 
former des troupeaux et de cultiver la terre, et tout 
cela a ses x>ropres frais, qui se sont montes a des sommes 
irnmenses, sans compter I'argent qu'il a donn6 a cliaque 

ioc>>^ef-de-famille, pour pourvoir a la subsistance de sa femme 
et de ses enfans." 

Thus, after their memorable year of misery, the Kal- 
mucks were replaced in territorial possessions, and in 
comfort equal, perhaps, or even superior, to that which 

15 they had enjoyed in Russia, and with superior political 
advantages. But, if equal or superior, their condition was 
no longer the same; if not in degree, their social prosperity 
had altered in quality; for, instead of being a purely 
pastoral and vagrant people, they were now in circum- 

20 stances which obliged them to become essentially depend- 
ent upon agriculture,- and thus far raised in social rank 
that, by the natural course of their habits and the neces- 
sities of life, they were effectually reclaimed from roving 
and from the savage customs connected with so unsettled 

25 a life. They gained also in political privileges, chiefly 
through the immunity from military service which their 
new relations enabled them to obtain. These were circum- 
stances of advantage and gain. But one great disadvan- 
tage there was, amply to overbalance all other possible 

30 gain — the chances were lost, or were removed to an 

inculculable distance, for their conversion to Christianity, 

without w^hich in these times there is no absolute advance 

possible on the path of true civilization. 

One word remains to be said upon the personal interests 

35 concerned in this great drama. The catastrophe in this 
respect was remarkable and complete. Oubacha, with alf 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 81 

his goodness and incapacity of suspecting", had, since the 
mysterious affair on the banks of the Torgau, felt his mind 
alienated from his cousin. He revolted from the man that 
would have murdered him; and he had displayed his 
caution so visibly as to provoke a reaction in the bearing 5 
of Zebek-Dorchi and a displeasure which all iiis dissimula- 
tion could not hide. This had produced a feud, which, by 
keeping them aloof, had probably saved the life of Oubacha ; 
for the friendship of Zebek-Dorchi was more fatal than his 
open enmity. After the settlement on the Ily this fe; 1 10 
continued to advance, until it came under the notice of the 
Emperor, on occasion of a visit which all the Tartar chief- 
tains made to his majesty at his hunting lodge in 1772. 
The Emperor informed himself accurately of all the partic- 
ulars connected with the transaction, of all the rights and 15 
claims put forward, and of the way in which they would 
severally affect the interests of the Kalmuck people. The 
consequence was that he adopted the cause of Oubacha, 
and repressed the pretensions of Zebek-Dorchi, who, on 
his part, so deeply resented this discountenance to his 20 
ambitious projects that, in conjunction with other chiefs, 
he had the presumption even to weave nets of treason 
against the Emperor himself. Plots were laid, were 
detected, were baffled; counterplots were constructed upon 
the same basis, and with the benefit of the opportunities 25 
thus offered. 

Finally Zebek-Dorchi was invited to the imperial lodge, 
together with all his accomplices; and, under the skillful 
management of the Chinese nobles in the Emperor's estab- 
lishment, the murderous artifices of these Tartar chieftains 30 
were made to recoil upon themselves; and the whole of 
them perished by assassination at a great imperial banquet; 
for the Chinese morality is exactly of that kind which 
approves in everything the lex talionis: 

34 Lex talionis. The law of retaliation, by which the punishment is of the 
same character aa the crime. 



82 FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 

"... Lex nee jnstior ulla est [as they think] 
Quam necis artifices arte perire sua." 

So perished Zebek-Dorchi, the author and originator of 
the great Tartar exodus. Oubacha, meantime, and his 

5 people were gradually recovering from the effects of their 
misery and repairing their losses. Peace and prosperity, 
under the gentle rule of a fatherly lord paramount, 
redawned upon the tribes; their household lares, after so 
harsh a translation to distant climates, found again a happy 

lo reinstatement in what had, in fact, been their primitive 
abodes; they found themselves settled in quiet sylvan 
scenes, rich in all the luxuries of life, and endowed with 
the perfect loveliness of Arcadian beauty. But from the 
hills of this favored land, and even from the level grounds 

15 as they approach its western border, they still look on 
upon that fearful wilderness which once beheld a nation in 
agony — the utter extirpation of nearly lialf a million from 
amongst its numbers, and for the remainder a storm of 
misery so fierce that in the end (as happened also at 

20 Athens during the Peloponnesian war from a different 
form of misery) very many lost their memory; all records 
of their past life were wiped out as with a sponge — utterly 
erased and canceled ; and many others lost their reason — 
some in a gentle form of pensive melancholy, some in a more 

25 restless form of feverish delirium and nervous agitation, 
and others in the fixed forms of tempestuous mania, raving 
frenzy, or moping idiocy. Two great commemorative 
monuments arose in after years to mark the depth and 
permanence of the awe, the sacred and reverential grief, 

1 "Lex nee," etc. "No law ie juster than that devisers of minder should 
perish by their own art." — Ovid, "Ars Amatoria," . 655. 

8 Lares. Household gods. A graceful feature of the Roman religion was 
the worship of the Lares and Penates, the household deities who watched over 
the interests of the family. Lares is here used to denote the valued belongings 
of the family. 

13 Arcadian. Arcadia was a pastoral country in the Peloponnesus, the 
home of all country delights, in the imagination of the classic poets. 



FLIGHT OF A TARTAR TRIBE 



83 



with which all persons looked back upon the dread calami- 
ties attached to the year of the tiger— all who had either 
personally shared in those calamities and had themselves 
drunk from that cup of sorrow, or who had effectually 
been made witnesses to their results and associated with 5 
their relief. Two great monuments, we say: first of all, 
one in the religious solemnity, enjoined by tfie Dalai Lamai 
called in the Tartar language a Romanang, that is, a 
national commemoration, with music the most rich and 
solemn, of all the souls who departed to the rest of paradise ic 
from the afflictions of the desert. This took place about six 
years after the arrival in China. Secondly, another, more 
durable, and more commensurate to the scale of the 
calamity and to the grandeur of this national exodus, in 
the mighty columns of granite and brass erected by the 15 
Emperor, Kien Long, near the banks of the II y. These 
columns stand upon the very margin of the steppes, and 
they bear a short but emphatic inscription to the following 
effect: 

By the will of God, 20 

Here, upon the brink of these deserts, 

Which from this point begin and stretch away, 

Pathless, treeless, waterless, 

For thousands of miles, and along the margins of many mighty nations, 

Rested from their labors and from great afflictions. ' 25 

Under the shadow of the Chinese Wall, 
And by the favor of Kiex Long, God's Lieutenant upon Earth, 
The ancient Children of the Wilderness -the Torgote Tartars- 
Flying before the Wrath of the Grecian Czar ; 
Wandering sheep who had strayed away from the Celestial Empire in 30 
the year 1616, 
But are now mercifully gathered again, after infinite sorrow, 
Into the fold of their forgiving shepherd. 
Hallowed be the spot forever, 

and 2S 

Hallowed be the day— September 8, 1771. 
Amen. 



NOTES BY DE QUINCEY 



1. Singular it is, and not generally known, that Grecian women accompanied 
the anabasis of the younger Cyrus and the subsequent Retreat of the Ten 
Thousand. Xenophon afllrms that there were " many " women in the Greek 
army — n-oAAai rjo-av kralpai kv tw aTparev /Aari — and in a late Stage of that try- 
ing expedition it is evident that women were amongst the survivors. 

2. " Trashed''''— Th'ia is an expressive word used by Beaumont and Fletcher 
in their " Bouduca," etc., to describe the case of a person retarded and em- 
barrassed in flight, or in pursuit, by some encumbrance, whether thing or 
person, too valuable to be left behind. 

3. There was another ouloss equally strong with that of Feka-Zechorr, viz., 
that of Enketunn under the government of Assarcho and Machi, whom some 
obligations of treaty or other hidden motives drew into the general conspiracy 
of revolt. But fortunately the two chieftains found means to assure the Gov- 
ernor of Astrakhan, on the first outbreak of the insurrection, that their real 
wishes were for maintaining the old connection with Russia. The Coesacks, 
therefore, to whom the pursuit was intrusted, had instructions to act cau- 
tiously and according to circumstances on coming up with them. The result 
was, through the prudent management of Assarcho, that the clan, without 
compromising their pride or independence, made such moderate submissions 
as satisfied the Cossacks ; and eventually both chiefs and people received from 
the Czarina the rewards and honors of exemplary fidelity. 

4. All the circumstances are learned from a long state paper on the subject 
of this Kalmuck migration drawn up in the Chinese language by the Emperor 
himself. Parts of this paper have been translated by the Jesuit missionaries. 
The Emperor states the whole motives of his conduct and the chief incidents 
at great length. 

5. Camels " indorsed "— " And elephants indorsed with towers."— Milton in 
" Paradise Regained " (III. 329). 



84 



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Two German Readers 
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language,— and secondly, to train the learner to utilize his stock 
of knowledge, acquired in translating from the German, by repro- 
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Neuer Leitfaden. By Edwin f. bacon, Ph.B., 

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and, in the hands of a skillful teacher, are calculated to 
prepare for rapid and intelligent progress through the 
admirable single-page lessons that follow. These lessons 
contain a clear outline, the essentials, of the grammar 
without that minuteness of detail which renders so many 
text-books in language too bulky for ordinary use or con- 
venient reference. Cloth, $1.25. 

Kostyak and Ader's Deutschland und 

die DeutSChen. The land where German is spoken 
and the people who speak it. An excellent German 
reader. Cloth, 75 cents. 

Neue Anekdoten : Leichte und heitere 

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conversation. Boards, 40 cents. 

Maynard, Merrill, & Co., Publishers, 

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LRBS2i 



English Classic Series-continued. 



63 The Antigone of Sophocles. 

English Version by Thos. Franck- 

lin. D.D. 
j64 Elizabeth Barrett Browniny. 
I (Selected Poems.) 

65 Robert Browning. (Selected 
' Poems.) 

66 Addison's Spectator. (Selec'ns.) 

67 Scenes from George £liot's 

Adam Bede. 

68 Matthew Arnold's Culture and 

Anarchy. 

69 DeQuincey's Joan of Arc. 
7C Carlyle's Essay on Bums. 

71 Byron's Childe Harold's Pil- 
grimage. 

73 Poe's Raven, and other Pc ms. 

73 & 74 Macaulay's Lord Clive. 
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75 Webster's Reply to Hayiie. 

76&77 Olacaulays Lays of An- 
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78 American Patriotic Selections: 

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79 & 80 Scott's Lady of the Lake. 

(Condensed ) 
81 & 88 Scott's Marmion. (Con- 

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83 & 84 Pope's Essav on Man. 

85 Shelley's Skylark, Adouais, and 

other Poems. 

86 Dickens's Cricket on the 

Hearth. 

87 Spencer's Philosophy of Style. 

88 Lamb's Es.says of Elia. 

89 Cowper's Task, Book II. 

90 Wordsworth's Selected Poems, 

91 Tennyson's The Holy Grail, and. 

Sir Galahad. 
93 Addison's Cato. 

93 Irving's Westminster Abbey, 

and Christmas Sketches. 

94 & 95 Macaulay's Earl of Chat- 

ham. Second Essay. 

96 Early Engrlish Ball fids. 

97 Skelton, Wyatt, and Surrey, 

(Selected Poems.) 

98 Edwin Arnold. (Selected Poems.) 

99 Caxton and Daniel. (Selections.) 

100 Fuller and Hooker. (Selections.) 

101 Mailowe's Jew of Malta. (Con- 

densed.) 

103-103 Macaulay's Essay on Mil- 
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104-105 Macaulay's Essay on Ad- 
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106 Macaulay's Essay on Bos- 
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107 Mandeville's Travels and Wy- 
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108-1 09 3Iacaulay's Essay on Fred- 
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110-111 Milton's Samson Agonis- 

113-113-114 Franklin's Autobiog- 
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115-116 Herodotus's Stories of 
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117 Irving's Alhambra. 

118 linrke's Present Discontents. 

119 Burke's Speech on Concilia- 

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130 Macaulay's Essav on Bvron. 
131-123 Motley's Peter the Great. 

133 Emerson's American Scholar. 

134 Arnold's Sohrab and Rustuni. 
135-130 Longfellow's Evangeline. 

137 Andersen's Danish Fairy Tales. 

(Selectetl.) 

138 Tennyson's The Coming of 

Arthur, and The Passing of 
Artluir. 

139 LowelPs The Vision of Sir 

Launfal, and other Puems. 

130 Whittier's Songs of Labor, and 
oiher Poems. 

131 Words of Abraham Lincoln. 
133 Grimm's German Fairy Tales. 

(Selected.) 

133 ^sop's Fables. (Selected.) 

134 Arabian Nights. Aladdin, or 
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135-3G The Psalter. 

137-38 Scott's Ivanhoe. (Con- 
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139-40 Scott's Kenilworth. (Con- 
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141-43 Scott's The Talisman. (Con- 
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143 Gods and Heroes of the North. 

144-45 Pope's Iliad of Homer. 
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146 Four Mediaeval Chroniclers. 

147 Dante's Inferno. (Condensed.) 
148-49 The Book of Job. (Revised 

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150 Bow-Wow and Mew-Mew. By 
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151 The Nurnberg Stove. ByOuida. 
153 Hayne's Speech. To which 

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153 Alice's Adventures in Won- 
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L'ARKOLL. 

154-155 Defoe's Journal of the 
Plague. (Condensed.) 

150-157 More's Utopia. (Con- 
densed.) 



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164-165-166 Prescott's Conquest 
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167 liongfellow's Voices of the 

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168 Hawthorne's Wonder Book. 

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169 DeQuincey's Flight of a Tar- 

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173 Raskin's King of the Golden 
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174-175 Irving's Tales of a Trav- 
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176 Ruskin's Of Kings* Treasuries. 

First half of Hesame and Lilies. 
Com pie 16. 

177 Raskin's Of Queens' Gardens. 

Second half oi ^tsame and Lilies. 
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178 Macaulay's IJfe of Johnson. 
179-180 Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. 
181-182-183 Wykes's Shakespeare 

Reader. 
184 Hawthorne's Grandfather's 
Chair. Part I. Complete. 

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